


to see you again

by petrichorblue94



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Forced Marriage, Jon Snow just needs a hug, Letters, Older Sansa, Prophetic Dreams, Pseudo-Incest, Sansa-centric, Time Travel, Wildlings - Freeform, cunning!Sansa, jon and sansa north of the wall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2018-09-18 08:40:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9377123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrichorblue94/pseuds/petrichorblue94
Summary: The Warden of the North's eldest daughter is captured by the wildlings as a part of Mance Rayder's plan to bloodlessly transfer the free folk south of the Wall. Her bastard brother is captured along with her and Sansa struggles to prove to the northern warriors his life is worth keeping - this means she has to reveal to the King Beyond the Wall her prophetic dreams where Jon Snow is the fated vanquisher of the Night King.One thing she doesn't expect is that Rayder believes that if he steals her as a wife, he'll take her powers for himself as well. But how can she explain that she herself knows she's destined to marry a king entirely different than himself, a king whose seemingly set-in-stone demise she's endlessly striving to avoid?





	1. an echo

Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell, dies with his sister's name on his lips.

He is clutching with his final strength a Targaryen crown, and the northern wind is hitting on his face, freezing his final tear. The Others could have turned him into one of them, a horrifying walking memory of the loyal, kind man who once occupied his body. He sure would have looked imposing next to the ice dragon that was now Raegal.

But they leave him, for now. Perhaps they would return later. Perhaps they would give him the respect no one suspected the dead could give.

It is as if she were a bird, flying away from him, because he gets smaller and smaller and starts fading. Snow covers her eyes.

_Sansa_ , is all she can hear. _Sansa_ , is all that haunts her.

_Let me touch him_ , she wails to the gods. _Just one last time. Let me hold his hand in that snow-covered field._ _I don't want him to be alone there, in the end._ _Let me caress his cheek and kiss his forehead,_ _let_ _me tell him how_ _beloved he is, and how dear_ _._

_Sansa,_ he whispers with his final breath.

She cannot go because she is already dead.

* * *

"Sansa!"

Sansa Stark does not awake with a gasp. She startles from her sleep, curled up in the smallest ball her long limbs could have formed. She startles from her sleep and her throat is tight and her mind is crying, her heart longing and grieving for someone who is not yet dead or wanted. But the feelings of her dream are so real, for a moment she does not try to chase them away, she just ponders on the power of her emotions.

_I loved him then, in that dream,_ she wondered. _I loved my bastard brother, the insult to my mother's honor._

How sweet this love was, like in the songs. But what could that dream have meant? Fairytales and stories, she usually loved them but this time it was something even she could not accept.

Her sister's voice came in from behind the bedroom door again and the strange buzzing in her mind, almost like a lullaby, disappeared from her mind.

"Are you finally awake? Mother told me to fetch you for breakfast.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this in the dead of night and then fell asleep. The weirdest thing is that I had a similar dream to this one. 
> 
> Decided to upload this snippet before I write more - consider it a prologue, preface or something of that sort because I doubt that the other chapters will be this short.


	2. a future queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, I wasn't actually sure if I'd ever write more than the prologue of this fic but your reviews and kudos inspired me, guys! So thank you for reacting to this story and not being indifferent - this is all the motivation I need to continue!

 

The other fragments of the dream come triggered by moments.

Sansa feels a chill so strong, for some inexplicable reason, when she enters the hall with her Arya in toll. She looks around and the first face her eyes settle on is Jon Snow. He is smiling warmly at her sister from a distance, sitting faithfully next to Robb but his eyes slowly travel to her when he notices her staring.

“ _Is this what you want, Sansa? To become a Queen? You want me to fight for the crown?”_ The words come chiming as if from somewhere far, like something getting closer and closer only to be swallowed by the water.

 _STOP IT_ , she yells in her mind.

“Are you alright?” Arya asks with a frown looking at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head.

“Of course,” Sansa replies, if somewhat shakily. “Why would I not be?”

“Well, for one, you suddenly stopped. And now you're as pale as a ghost.”

Sansa steals another glance at the bastard, who is now looking at her with an identical expression to Arya's, shakes away the peculiar feeling that she is supposed to know him better.

 _Whatever this was_ , she thinks. _I want no part of it!_

Once the sisters take their place on the table, Sansa greets her brothers, Mother, Septa Mordane, Maester Luwin and Theon and proceeds to ignore Arya. She turns to her friend Jeyne who is already munching on an apple.

“Dessert, already?” she asks with a teasing smile.

“You were late,” Mother calls from over the table, having stopped mid-talk to the Septa. “Are you well?”

“I had a nightmare,” Sansa confesses and looks at Jon again, who is laughing – something uncharacteristic for his quiet and melancholy nature - at something Robb has said. “Where is Father?” she asks after she looks around. Robb, Arya, Jon and Theon had formed something of a small group of their own and Bran and Rickon were talking in hushed voices, giggling every now and then, probably about something only children could think to talk about.

“You missed him by mere minutes. He has a business to attend to,” her Mother said, “but I think he'll be coming by the end of the breakfast. Now eat something, you really do look paler than a sheet.”

Sansa nodds and digs into her breakfast. Rabbit stew, freshly baked bread with butter and green apples, delivered from the Vale as a gift from aunt Lysa and her husband.

Her Mother is having a heated conversation with the Septa and the Maester, something about an old northern superstition about today.

“There's a truth to these northern 'superstitions', my lady,” the old man is saying with a sage, phlegmatic voice.

“Don't be blasphemous, Luwin,” septa Mordane says. “I've yet to see one of those _fairy-tales_ come alive.”

After a moment Sansa stops paying attention to the adults but inspired from them, she leans towards Jeyne and tells her of her somewhat mystic dream: “A king was dying in the snow, in my nightmare. Winter had come and the Others were real.” Even if it has been just a dream, her voice is still emotional. She takes a mug of tea and drank, hoping it would help her get a hold of herself.

“Robert Baratheon?” Jeyne asks.

Sansa shrugs. “No, this king was too young. He almost looked like -” but here Sansa paused - the truth is far too ridiculous to be told aloud, “- a Targaryen,” she breaths at last.

“What a curious dream,” Jeyne says, “all the Targaryens are dead. _Our_ king saw to it.”

Sansa shakes her head. “No, I know that. It was probably because we've been reading a lot of stories about knights and princes.”

“Lots of legends too,” her friend interjects. After a brief quietness, Jeyne smiles deviously and bumps her arm into Sansa's. “Was he handsome?”

“The king?” The redhead looks down. “Oh, he was the handsomest. All dark, but for his wear – Targaryen red tunic and a wolf's pelt.”

“Now that's strange!”

“It was winter after all, I suppose.”

“Sansa,” Jeyne suddenly giggles. “You have the vastest of imaginations when it comes to princes and kings and songs.” Sansa herself chances a smile of her own.

_Yes, that must be it. Of course._

“Sansa,” her Mother tells her suddenly. “I hear Arya hasn't been coping well with her needlework lately.”

“She has _never_ been coping well in needlework!” Sansa laughs, for the first time this morning, and shares a conspicuous look with Jeyne. She hears Arya mutter something nasty at her but ignores her.

“You will help her additionally – every day for an extra hour,” Catelyn announces. Arya drops her fork.

“No!” she gasps, as if she has just been condemned for death.

“Can Jeyne come as well?” Sansa asks, already accepting her fate, knowing there was no use arguing against her mother. This is probably something she and Father have cooked up together, thinking of a way to get the two sisters to become closer. But at least if Jeyne is there, it would be more bearable. She can't stand to have her sister look at her with disgust, thinking herself so very different and better than her just because she has the guts to go adventuring on her own, just because she looks like aunt Lyanna and is not-so-secretly Father's favorite. Sansa is a lady and she would have an even more adventurous life one day, she would one day go south and marry a noble knight of the court or even someone of higher status.

“ _Is this what you want, Sansa? To become a Queen? You want me to fight for the crown?”_

“ _You must know, surely, that this is not what matters to me! Those were the dreams of a porcelain girl long reborn into something else. I want us to march the armies of Westeros to the North, we can't do that unless you seize what is rightfully yours!”_

Sansa shrugs her head to chase away the memory of those words. A memory from _where_?

“No, Sansa, it will be just the two of you,” Mother says without leaving space for negotiations.

From somewhere in the distance Arya is heard groaning: “This is not fair!”

But Robb whispers something to her that calms her and while she looks rather pug-faced now in her anger, she argues no more on the matter.

Sansa finds herself in an even worse mood than when she came and not even the smuggled from the kitchens lemon cake that Jeyne gave her improves her mood by much. Her gaze travels across the table without really searching for anything but suddenly she notices that her youngest brothers are gone.

“Mother,” she says sharply. “Where are Bran and Rickon?”

Catelyn's gaze scours the Great Hall as well but when she too does not find them she frowns.

* * *

“Of course they had to wager on who was the better explorer of the castle just when your father was gone,” Catelyn Stark says with a sigh.

They find Bran climbing the walls and when, once he has safely gotten down, they press him he confesses - he and Rickon have separated, gone to explore and would only reunite by dinner and tell each other of all they have braved to see.

“Can't you call for him?” Sansa asks irritably.

“No, Sansa,” Catelyn says with a touch of exasperation of her own. “Sometimes, rarely, your father says he has to go somewhere and doesn't return for hours, he never tells me where he goes.” It is obvious she doesn't wish to share this with her daughter, this vulnerable side of her where she worries Eddard Stark has hidden Jon Snow's mother somewhere nearby Winterfell and is seeing her in secret.

Now that Bran is grounded to his rooms and a small search party for Rickon is being organized, everyone has divided to their locations. Arya calls the stables, the smithy and the Armory for herself, Theon is searching the kennels, the Hunter's Gate, the Maester's Turret. Robb takes the Bell Tower, the kitchens, the Library Tower. He and Arya would both go to the Godswood later, and Catelyn is just about to go to the Sept and then the Great Keep and sends some of the servants to the guest house and the courtyard.

“I'll go to the crypts,” Jon offers but Catelyn stops briefly and shoots him a glare.

“You've no place there,” she tells him coldly. _You are not a true Stark, you do not belong there,_ she means to say. Sansa looks away from them. “Take the Broken Tower first and then the First Keep and the Guards' Hall.

“I'll take the glass garden, Mother,” Sansa says. “And the North gate.”

Catelyn nods. “Rickon is too young to wander to the crypts. He'll be scared by the ghost stories Arya tells him.”

Sansa finds herself going ahead of Jon Snow, on her way to the glass garden. He trails awkwardly behind her, too afraid of her usual cold indifference to slip in step. Sansa thinks only of Rickon then and doesn't take notice, she just hurries ahead. She notices however, that he chooses to go to the Broken Tower first.

Just before she hurries towards the North Gate and the glass garden she hears the echo of a child's giggle. She is sure it's Rickon so she tries to pinpoint where it had come from. A moment before despairing she hears it again. It's coming from the crypts and she realizes that her mother is wrong. Rickon has always been as daring as a wildling and of course he'd brave into the dark tombs of their ancestors.

Sansa decides to be brave too, and follows the sound of her little brother's laughter.

“Rickon?” she calls. “Come forward, you're not being funny for hiding.”

“I am!” Rickon challenges from somewhere ahead and she sees his running deeper into the crypts.

“I'm very cross at you.”

“Shh, come and see what I've found!” Sansa notices he slows down for her and waits.

“Alright, I'll come,” she concedes. “But after that you're coming with me straight to Mother, you agree?”

“Will she be angry at me?”

“No,” Sansa lies. She's almost reached him but she feels dizzy for a brief moment.

“I know she will be!”

The redhead huffs at her brother. “Maybe she will be but I'll take your side and you'll probably get away with only a few days worth of grounding.”

“Then I won't come back at all!” Rickon stomps his foot. “I'll hide in the crypts!”

“You'll get hungry and won't be able to eat or drink anything. Come now, it won't be this bad, I promise. Once Arya and I got into a huge fight and mother sent both of us to our bedchamber, for two days. But Father secretly brought us lemon cakes and books.”

“How did you manage not to kill each other?” Rickon asks with a child's curiosity.

“To this day I don't know,” Sansa answers with a smirk.

“Shhh, now,” Rickon says at once. For the first time Sansa notices that the torches are lit. She wonders who else would have gotten an urge to come down there in a morning as sunny as this one.

The redhead takes one of the torches as she silently, warily follows her brother. She feels a slight chill again, but perhaps it is because the crypts are usually cold. Her vision blurrs for a second again and for a moment she sees in her mind a lighter hallway, a richer hallway, lit by the sun.

 _A man_ _is_ _walking slowly towards her, rubies sewn to his tunic like his father before him. His smile - warm just for her._ _C_ _rownless_ _are_ _his_ _dark curls_ _for the first time today._

“Sansa, throw away the torch!” Rickon says it in a whisper but it shakes her from her daze none-the-less. With the quietest steps they can make, the two siblings approach the crypt of Lyanna Stark. Sansa wonders what all this secrecy is about but she complies to the child's wish.

Sitting on the ground next to the statue of his dead sister is their father, who is talking to her as if she can hear him. He seems to be retelling her of things of the past. The view of the two of them – one dead, an echo left in cold stone, and the other miserable but alive – makes the girl's throat catch. Sansa has always thought that the brilliance of Lyanna Stark's famous laughter is still hidden, in the dimness of her brother's smile.

“And so, Arya's about to have to face the horrid everyday life of a lady, as you yourself once said. And Sansa will quite possibly be betrothed to Joffrey Baratheon. It has always been her dream to be someone of importance in the South so I suppose things will go quite well for her. Robb will take my place once he marries and…”

“ _So,” he says quietly as he nears her, “it is done.” With a weary sigh, he kisses her – softly, slowly, the kindest of kisses - to chase away the bitterness of a power he does not want. “You're queen now,” he breathes into her mouth._

“ _Don't tease,” she reproaches him tenderly._

“Jon wants to take the black one day. Actually he wants to become a knight, like in the songs, like his foolish father.” Here his voice cracks. “I'm sorry. He deserves better than this life. Catelyn deserves better. You and Rhaegar both deserved better than what fate delivered.” Sansa realizes her father is close to crying now. “You had to go and fall in love with the most impossible man on Westeros, you had to break all our hearts by dying, didn't you?” He pauses. “I'm sorry, Lyanna, today has me all teared up like an old maid and- perhaps it's because it's Jon's nameday – the day you died so many years ago – but I-”

“Rickon,” Sansa whispers very, very quietly to her brother who looks up to her. “We have to go, now. We're not meant to be here.”

Thankfully her brother nods as if he understands why they have to leave. They hurry away, and Sansa hopes their father would stay a little bit longer conversing with the memory of his sister.

She grasps the little boy by the hand and once they are a safe distance away, they almost run towards the iron gate.

_He lay there dying, in that snow – clutching the bloodied Targaryen crown he has taken off in one hand, the other grasping for something invisible – clutching at the crimson snow._

“ _Sansa,” he whispers, calls, begs – it is the most desperate of pleas a dying man can make. He is in so much pain, and he is alone, for so long, until he is already cold, until he suddenly isn't alone anymore._

_A frosty figure with a crown of ice, with eyes as blue as the winter, looks straight towards Sansa over the body of the last king. It is silent, regarding her almost calmly, a glint of victory barely visible in its eyes (for this thing is no longer human), as if to say “he's mine now”._

_And then another man, alive this time. Tall and lean and oddly familiar. He looks at the Night King with the fierceness of a warrior who has fought a war for years.“He's not yours,” he says with a clear voice. “The ink is not quite dry yet. There is still time to write a different ending.” The creature turns, and slowly walks away from the scene. The boy looks towards Sansa then and she feels chilled to her bones for having been seen by him. Until -_

“ _Bran?”_

What does one do with a vision like this one? Worse, what does one do with overhearing a secret as important as Eddard Stark's? A dragon sleeping in the very heart of Winterfell, possibly the last Targaryen in the world. And the worst of it – if her dream could predict the secret, then what about the other parts of it? What about the Others? What about – all else?

“Rickon,” Sansa says urgently to her brother. “Whatever you do, don't tell anyone what you heard, alright? It's a matter of life and death. Do you swear to me?”

“Mother says I shouldn't swear.”  
“Not this kind of swear,” Sansa huffs irritably. “Vow to me you won't tell anyone.”

For the longest of moments the redhead expects him not to agree, or to ask – oh, perhaps an indefinite supply of her lemon cakes or something of that sort – but here the boy just nods slowly and looks at her sweetly - the picture of an obedient little brother, for once.

_Her brother, looking like a king of Winter - like in the old tales - gives her a long, soft look and speaks:_

“ _Be wary, sister, and play your cards well in the game to come,” Bran tells her. “The fates have promised you a prince but you have to fight like the wildest of Starks to stop them from taking him away like this. This,” he looks at Jon's corpse, already starting to get covered by the falling snow, “this is how he ends, otherwise. This is how it all ends. The last living descendant of the human race,” he sighs, and with his sigh the dream evaporates into darkness and she awakens, curled into herself._

They rush out of the crypts just in time to see Jon Snow exit the Guards' Hall. His face lights up once he sees Rickon and he runs towards them. “Where have you been hiding this half an hour, you rouge?”

The little boy lets go of Sansa's hand and rushes towards Jon who ruffles his hair in relief. “It's a secret,” he says matter-of-factly. The young man laughs at the tone of the youngest of the Starks.

“He was hiding in the glass garden,” Sansa lies. Jon Snow's eyes meet hers then but she can't read him.

“You've been pale all morning,” he tells her. “Are you alright?”

“I-” Sansa sees him in a new light, now – she doesn't think she could ever go back to seeing him as the motherless bastard of Winterfell, Ned Stark's shame, her half-brother. Instead she sees him for all he's about to be, for the briefest of moments. The girl shakes her head, something she feels she has done a few times already today, to chase away thoughts of things so complicated. “I have to take Rickon to Mother.”

“Alright,” he whispers as he steps back to let her pass.

“Come, little brother,” she tells the boy with a smile.

“Don't forget your promise!” Rickons tells her warningly, once she takes back his hand. “You'll defend me in front of Mother!”

“Don't forget yours,” is all she replies.

* * *

“This is such nonsense!” Arya bemoans her fate for the tenth time this noon. “Why do I have to care about needlework? Why do I have to be perfect in this? Why can't you all like me for my own virtues-?”

Sansa is about to say something about these virtues of hers when she stops herself and decides to be the older sibling, like she did earlier this day with Rickon.

“Arya. Here's what I offer – I help you with this needlework and I let you get away from this earlier.”

“What do you win in this?” Arya asks with distrust. “More free time to talk to Jeyne about your silly girlish things?”

Sansa tries really, really hard not to snap at her and ruin her rare moment of maturity. “I want us to stop fighting-” Arya sniggers. “To fight less. Truce?”

Arya doesn't reply but until late noon she makes an effort not to bicker with Sansa and tries to make her stitches right. Septa Mordane throws Sansa an approving look every now and then.

“It's not so bad,” Arya observes at the end. “Not fighting with you, I mean. Knitting and sewing are still two of the most boring and horrible things on the world.” She stands up and is about to leave when Jeyne enters, an enthusiastic look on her face. Arya regards her coolly before exiting.

Jeyne hurries to explain to Sansa the reason for her excitement. “While you were exercising with your sister, I heard the best news we could have ever hoped for!”

“Oh?”

Jeyne comes to Sansa and catches both her hands. “The royal party will come to Winterfell! Lord Stark will announce it tonight, at dinner! I heard it in the kitchens, they'll start preparing for the feasts starting tomorrow.” Silent from wonder, Sansa lets Jeyne lead her outside. “King Robert and his men are famous for their appetites, and even our lord is not sure if all the wine in Winter town will be enough!”

While they are walking in the hallways, Sansa's youngest siblings run past them, obviously lost in their game.

“Bran!” she calls for the long-haired boy who stops and then turns on his heels to her. He is so young, compared to the man who spoke to her in that strange, strange dream.

“What?” he asks.

Sansa hesitates for the briefest of seconds before speaking: “Aren't you supposed to be grounded in your rooms?”

The boy's eyes widen comically. “Run, Rickon!” he orders his brother and soon they are gone in the blink of an eye. Jeyne laughs at their antics but soon returns to her previous thought.

“Sansa, do you know what this means? Joffrey Baratheon will also be there, your fathers are friends – you can be betrothed in two moons time!” Sansa's heart flutters at those words and for a moment she forgets today's morning. “Oh, Sansa,” Jeyne exclaims. “Gods willing, you could be the next queen of the seven kingdoms!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you may choose to view it as a prophetic dream before the start of the series AU, or war for the dawn is lost, a dying Bran crawls to the roots of a weirwood tree and sends his sleeping sister a vision of the things to come. Headcanon Bran just had to bump into the story and change the tropes, didn’t he?
> 
> BTW, I'll be making an aesthetic for each chapter. Here's the one for "a future queen"   
> https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/42/fa/41/42fa412d8f8c5f631debad08eb18a1e8.jpg
> 
> In the next chapter we'll be seeing more of Jon. ;)


	3. cold hands, hot breath (I)

Sansa decides to accompany her older siblings to a ride in the forest. Robb, Theon and Jon are going to hunt and Arya also wants to go so Sansa decides to do her a favor and convince their parents that they could let her go with her brothers if she also goes with them.

It's a strange concept, being so close to her the four of them. At first she goes because she wishes to be kinder to Arya, because she want to take her mind off from the anxiety from the arrival of the Baratheon party, quite possibly her future husband among them. But then she begins to enjoy it, as she has always been afraid to. Sansa has always felt like the different one and no matter how much she secretly yearned to be a part of this tightly-knit group, she has never had the courage to go and join them on their outings, too afraid to rebel against the preconceived notions people have of her.

Theon shoots down a few birds with his arrows, and Robb has decided to hunt a deer. Jon wanders somewhere further, in search of wild rabbits. Sansa is having a hard time not gawking at the bastard from time-to-time but judging by the heat on the boy's pale cheeks, she's failing miserably.

Arya is trying to catch fish from the river with her bare hands and the red-haired girl goes to sit on a rock close to her, to watch her sister try to swiftly grasp one. The younger Stark frowns when she fails and pursues her lips together.

“Perhaps in a few tries, you'll succeed,” Sansa encourages her with a smile.

Arya seems surprised by the sudden change of Sansa's attitude, but in truth – at fifteen years of age, Sansa has long since started to get tired of the childish immaturity in their interactions.

“Come here!” Jon Snow yells suddenly, from somewhere deeper in the forest. “I've found something!”

Arya and Sansa briefly look at each other and then take off running along with Robb and Theon towards Jon's voice.

“What is it?” Robb shouts as they approach. There is a brick of a tree that falls elegantly in their way and the oldest Stark has to crouch a bit as he brushes it aside from their path. Then he stops.

“Jon...” he trails off.

Sansa grasps her brother's shoulder and peeks across it to see why have they suddenly stopped.

Five little pups she sees, left alone by the riverside.

“Direwolves!” Arya exclaims as she passes by her older siblings and goes to Jon Snow. She immediately kneels next to one of them.

“This one's female, I think,” Jon Snow tells her.

“Come, Sansa, but stay behind me,” Robb warns her. Then he turns to Jon Snow. “What of their mother?” But then the bastard nods his head a little further down the riverside and they all notice the corpse of the dead she-wolf.

“They'll die unless we take them,” Arya quietly observes.

“We will,” Jon tells her and the young girl's eyes light up.

“Father won't be pleased,” Robb tells them. But as he says this, his eyes find those of a grey pup and his resolve visibly wavers.

“There's another , for you,” Jon Snow says softly and Sansa is at first unsure if he is talking to her. A direwolf, for _her_? “Don't be afraid, lady Sansa,” he tells her as he looks at her with warm, grey eyes. “She won't bite.” Not for the first time this day, Sansa tries to merge the concept of the hidden Targaryen prince and the boy with the soft voice and the warm eyes and the result causes some… stirrings within her.

It is in that moment when Sansa Stark falls in love.

Her own hesitance, just like Robb's, melts the moment she looks at the wolf Jon Snow has appointed for her. She sits on the fallen tree next to the pups and the smallest one slowly comes to sniff at her hand. She caresses its forehead in wonder. She turns to look at Jon Snow then, who regards her with oddly sad eyes. Then, when she wants to look away, she notices something.

“There's another one,” she tells him. “Look!” Jon whips his head around and sees an albino direwolf a little further from the others, as if it -alone - had tried to find their dead mother. “I think this one could be yours.”

Half an hour later, the Robb, Sansa and Jon Snow are sitting on the stones by the riverside, Arya is once again trying to catch fish with her bare hands but is ever-so-frequently throwing glances at the pup she has named Nymeria which is playing with its siblings. Theon has continued his hunt for birds and ribbits, too sour for not having a wolf of his own.

It is then that Sansa realizes she's not the only one who feels like she has no place among the Starks. The Greyjoy too, and Jon Snow perhaps, for all she knew. Maybe Arya often feels too young for them to genuinely want her presence, more likely seeing her as a reason to worry needlessly.

It is Robb, Sansa realizes. Robb Stark is the one they all feel like they have to prove to, the next Lord Stark, the bravest and most beloved of them.

All of a sudden they hear Theon yell.

“What is it now?” Robb wonders. “Another direwolf perhaps?”

“Wildlings!” Theon shouts in reply.

In an instant Robb and Jon Snow are on their feet, Arya is struggling to cross the river as fast as she possibly can, her eyes already searching the woods. Sansa gets her sister's boots in advance and instinctively goes near Robb.

“Go hide!” her brother tells them. Arya looks like she wants to protest but doesn't say anything so instead she takes the boots from Sansa and hurriedly puts them on. The girls go behind one of the taller bushes and try to keep quiet..

Sansa hears her brother yelling something. Then there are shouts, the sound of metal hitting metal, of arrows shot and buried in flesh and wood. Cries of someone being wounded. She's too terrified to analyze what precisely is happening. Abruptly, for a mere moment, everything becomes quiet.

There's someone approaching them, a wildling with a fiery red hair. The sisters regard him with held breaths and suddenly they realize he's coming for the pups.

Arya sprints in an impulsive and valiant attempt to protect them and Sansa fails to shoot up after her and stop her, because someone has grabbed her by the ankle. A man with leering, merry eyes muffles her scream.

' _Gods help me_ ,' she thinks. ' _This is the end_.'

The man presses her on the ground with his body but at once, they hear an enraged yell. Jon Snow, who has managed to sneak behind the man, has pierced his thigh with a knife. The man sits up in pain and somehow, with inhuman force no doubt caused by the frantic pumping of her heart, Sansa manages to release herself.

“Run!” Jon Snow yells at her and she doesn't need to be told twice. She does notice that her protector is wounded on his side, that the man who had her pinned down also takes notice of this and decides to jab him in the wound. The boy screams.

Sansa reluctantly turns around, sees that Robb is just finishing off the man Arya tried to charge at. She almost sighs in relief and is about to go to them when she sees that there's another man who is obstructing her way to the siblings and this man is coming towards her. Sansa turns in panic and sprints on the opposite direction. She runs so far she even passes the corpse of the mother wolf. Just when she thinks she can't hear anyone anymore and slows down her pace, she sees three men coming at her from different directions.

She also hears the approaching voices of Jon Snow and Robb. ' _There's still a chance for salvation_ ,' she thinks. But then she sees the bastard of Winterfell, takes in his bloodied white shirt and dazed eyes and thinks him already half-dead.

For a moment their eyes meet and there's so much said between the two of them, wordlessly spoken in every human language of the world - a bond only formed between people who are about to die together. Without warning one of the five wildlings in the meadow - a blond one - attacks him but Jon Snow – even badly wounded – manages to parry the short sword in an instant.

' _He could become a_ _fine_ _sworn-sword, if he lives_ ' Sansa thinks. ' _Or a_ _war lord in the battles to come_.'

But the blond wildling unexpectedly pulls out a knife with his free hand and strikes Jon on his other side. He sways and is about to fall down when the man catches him by the armpits, so that Jon's back is pressed against him, and in one move presses the same knife against Jon's throat.

Sansa watches in horror – Jon who already looks close to fainting from the blood loss of his wounds, opens his mouth in awe of the approaching death.

“Ned Stark wouldn't pay well for a bastard,” he tells the other wildlings, who seem ready to argue with him. “We only need the girls and the heir.” For a moment Sansa wonders where is Theon.

“If you kill him,” Sansa suddenly hears herself say, “you are all going to die.”

“And why is that, lass?” the redheaded wildling, the one closest to her, asks. “Why would Ned Stark's bastard be important?”

Sansa looks around and tries to pinpoint if the others are listening. “There is a prophecy,” she whispers urgently. “It says he's the one who will save us all from the Others.”

“You know?” The man inspects her with new appreciation and then he suddenly turns to his blond comrade and holds a hand. “Kill 'im only if you wish me to slit your throat open!” he orders suddenly. While he is looking elsewhere, Sansa chances a glance behind her. The river is her only chance for salvation, but this is not the same part of it where Arya so carelessly crouched to catch fish- it's deeper here, the currents run faster and she'd probably drown.

They hear Robb's yells, quickly approaching. In his distraction, the wildling releases Jon Snow who falls on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Sansa feels sick. ' _He's dead_?' she asks herself in cold shock. She marvels at how barely a few minutes ago everything was so different. How did they all end up in this situation?

She doesn't realize she's stepping backward until she loses her balance.

She sees panic in the eyes of the redheaded wildling as he tries to reach out and catch her hand but it's too late. She falls into the ice-cold clutcheswater, her breath is sucked out of her by the sheer force of it. In a moment, her vision blacks out.

* * *

It feels like drowning, dying that is. Like someone smacked your face so swiftly and so harshly that it blew your air out.

“No, no, no,” she repeats again and again. “Not so soon,” she cries. “Not yet.”

The instrument of her death is poison- it is the final revenge of Petyr Baelish, arranged before his death. It all happens just a month after she has told Jon she's with child.

The Targaryen king is in the throne room with his late aunt's advisors and the new priestess of light, a woman Sansa is unexpectedly jealous from. They're honing their strategy like a sword but Jon is already desperate to return north. It feels wrong to be so far from the real threat, he tells them all every day.

The choking comes next - there's blood all over her hands, on her dress of white and gold. It's too late to call for someone, her voice is too strangled.

Then comes the terrible ache in her abdomen, the poison swiftly killing the child within her before it steals her final breath. Stumbling, she opens the door of her balcony and crawls there, watching the northern horizon. The warmth of her chamber escapes into the cold.

 _'_ _I'll be with them soon,_ ' the thought dawns on her. ' _With Father and Mother and Robb and Rickon. Perhaps I'll now be able to hold my babe in my arms._ ' It's almost sweet now, but in her dying moments she is grieving for what she leaves behind. Jon, in the middle of this final war. Arya, who has lost her path and forgotten herself in the blood of their enemies, hell-bent on a revenge that is taking from her her last shreds of humanity. Bran, in Winterfell, the Night's king's first victim-to-be, the one he most aches to destroy.

She outstretches her hand in the cold air, blindly reaching for someone she would never touch again. Her vision darkens, never to be clear again.

Sansa Stark dies alone, in King's Landing. She dies with a whisper. She dies with a name on her lips - a romantic death, one her young heart would have appreciated.

A crow screeches painfully and flies away from the palace.

 

“I had wanted to see him again” she says with a now calmer voice. They're back in the cold forest, Bran and Sansa, and Jon Snow's body is thankfully absent this time. “So desperately.” Sansa turns to look at this older, stranger version of her brother. “Why are you showing me these visions?”

“Because time is running out, Sansa,” Bran tells her. “You may not feel it now, but this will all come to pass in a few years time. The time of the mankind is drawing to an end, these are its last moments, this is the last summer… Unless you start remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

“Remembering in reverse,” Bran replies. “Be quicker this time. Be smarter. Anticipate our enemies' turns.”

“Why aren't you showing… _Jon_ these visions? He's the most central piece of the game.”

“The most central piece of the game is always the queen, my beloved sister. You must guide him to the path of becoming a king. Jon doesn't want this power - he struggled last time, he wouldn't want it now too. But he has to march north with the three dragons, his is the song of fire and ice, his is the only path to spring.”

* * *

Ned Stark's daughter wakes up curled into herself, unaware of her surroundings. Her heart drops to her stomach as she notices she doesn't know where she is. All she sees is a dark room, presumably from a hut made of wood and stone. The only light is coming from the fireplace. Despite of the heat of the room, she feels a chill that can't seem to leave her bones.

Sansa looks around in increasing panic and freezes upon noticing a blond woman standing in front of he table behind her and cutting down herbs and roots

The redhead feels so dizzy she fears might faint into the bed once again.

“You have not died,” the woman observes. “I was beginnin' to wonder.”

“How long have I been out?” Sansa asks warily. She realizes her voice is raspy and her throat is burning.

“A few days, long enough to cross the Wall. You had a fever, coming in and out of consciousness.”

“I don't remember it,” is all that Sansa says.

“You were delirious.” The woman has blond dreadlocks, an oval face and large, brown eyes. Her attire suggests she is obviously a spearwife and yet there is something feminine and gentle in her features. “Blubberin' in your sleep,” the woman continues, “talked of the Others, of a Targaryen king, of massacres and the things to come. Of poison.”

Sansa knows those were probably visions of the future that Bran has sent her but for the life of her she can't remember them.

“Jon Snow?” she asks instead. There is a terrible hope that he lives still, that the wildling hasn't sliced his throat in his distraction as she thinks she has seen.

“You talked of a Jon too. Your lover?” the spearwife asks curiously.

“No, no- he's...” Sansa sighs. “Will you tell me what happened?”

The woman shrugs. “Food is runnin' low. Others are takin' our hunters and huntin' is becoming more and more dangerous. If every time we go for a deer we lose a few of ours, we better eat ourselves out. At least they won't get taken. Anyway. We decided to kidnap some of you, Starks, and ask your father for provisions.”

Something clicked in Sansa's mind. “For how long will you keep us?”

The woman smiles. “You're going to stay in our village, glass girl. There are already talks of the contract to be made. Your father keeps us well-fed and equipped and we keep you alive.”

Sansa looks around, suddenly feeling helpless to her fate. How have they crossed the Wall?

“What happened to my siblings?” she asks instead.

“Your heir escaped, along with your sister. The ward, he died in the south woods, almost immediately after the attack, he way aimin'' to kill as many of our men as he could.”

“And Jon?”

Without any sympathy, the savage woman smiles. “Oh, so this is the Jon you were talking about!” she exclaims as if they are friends from ten years time. “Wasn't he Ned Stark's bastard boy? Naughty! I thought you southrons didn't stick it in when you share one blood.” She smiles down at Sansa wickedly and then handles her the potion she has made. “Drink this,” she orders. Reluctantly, Sansa does. And quickly chokes down on it.

“What vile thing is this?”

“Oh, get a grip of yourself, glass girl – this is for your fever. Herbs, soaked in ale.”

Sansa forces herself to drink it all, still in dumb shock. She ponders on the bleak future that is ahead of them.

“Did he… suffer?” Sansa asks and wonders if she will snap and become hysterical soon. It's like a sliver of ice has entered her heart. “Did Jon Snow suffer for long?”

The blond woman winced. “Messy wounds. My Loknor never quite managed to make clean cuts. The boy was screaming from pain when I was stitching him up.”

“He's... here?” Sansa asks suddenly.

“In the other room.”

Sansa feels her throat constrict. “Can I- can I see him?”

Without even waiting for a reply, Sansa stands up, only to notice that she's naked beneath all the furs.

“Why am I without clothes?” she asks, a hint of panic in her voice.

“Calm your tits,” the woman says. “You fell into a river. When they fetched you from there, they had you undressed and covered in furs, so the winter wouldn't take you. Your clothes froze and broke into pieces.” Then she smiles. “Don't worry. Ned Stark wouldn't pay for a daughter who was raped in her sleep. There's always the chance we'll give you back under the right price and he'll marry you off to some golden southron lordling… Unless you already went and fucked the bastard. Then we're not at fault here.” She raises her hands in a non-committal gesture. Without addressing the vulgar suggestion, Sansa gathers them all up in her hands and goes to the next door.

The first thing she notices is that the room is similar to the one she was just in. There's a fireside and a bed, and a table.

Jon Snow is lying on the bed, his uncovered torso hidden beneath layers of bloody bandages and furs. Upon seeing him, Sansa's breath catches in her throat and then comes out ragged.

As she goes to sit next to the still figure of the young man, she briefly wonders if it is the redheaded wildling that has saved him. “Strange thing, isn't it, Jon Snow?” Sansa asks him without expecting a reply. “That of all the people in the world you should be my only tether to home, in this faraway place.”

“He won't be waking up anytime soon,” the spearwife tells her, leaning on the door frame. “I didn't know if he'd live, with those stab wounds of his. I tried my best to save his sorry life but I can't babysit him forever, no matter how much Tormund seems to find him curious. Whether he lives or dies is your responsibility from now on.” Then she pauses for a moment. “The men who captured you will come in a few hours time. Rest now.” She turns to go but then pauses. “And don't try to escape. You'll only freeze your arse off and rob us of our promised food.” She closes the door.

Sansa looks at her supposed half brother for a long moment, takes the so desired in the last few days chance to observe him properly, to look at him with new eyes. And then she softly, ever so lightly traces the features of his face – his brow, his cheek. He leans into her and a strangled moan escapes him in his sleep.

She remembers the yearning of the future her, to feel the warmth of his skin one last time, to hear the lullaby of his heartbeat. Her finger briefly traces the line above his lip but so lightly that it can't be called a touch. She doesn't realize her mouth opens softly in awe. ' _He tried to save me_ ,' she thinks then. ' _Twice. And he found me a direwolf, as I found his._ ' She smooths his curls back, wonders what happened to those pups. ' _He's always been so sweet and kind._ _How come I never saw him when he was my half brother and only see him now, when he's something much more distant_?'

“Get well and wake up, Jon Snow,” Sansa tells him aloud, even if he won't hear. She lies down next to him, presses into his body, takes his hands and places them around her, like a pup still nuzzling to the dead body of its protector, searching for some perceived safety. He smells heavily of masculine sweat but instead of being a disgusted proper lady, it soothes her, grounds her. “I need you to protect me.”

Even so, the terror of their situation, the increasing anxiety make it hard for Sansa to fall asleep. She tries to calm herself down, but it is difficult with the fever she's still fighting which further muddles her thoughts and scares her even further.

For the first time in her life she reminds herself of the name she is bearing and feels her pride awaking. “I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell and I shan't cower before anything,” she tells herself. “I've got wolf blood in my veins. Winter and war is what we've been preparing for, for generations.”

' _Besides_ ,' she thinks, trying to be optimistic now, ' _if we survive this, if we manage to escape, we can make_ _this trip_ _North of the Wall to our advantage_.'

The wild beating of her heart slowly eases into something more bearable but she's still too afraid to sleep. She remembers she hasn't any clothes on and wonders if this is how the spearwife will make her greet her captors. She hopes that the one who had her pinned down is the one Jon has killed. Sansa shudders and almost reverts back to the terrified state she was a few minutes ago.

She forces herself to clear her mind and focuses on Jon Snow's sleeping profile instead. She knows he is a Targaryen now but right at this moment she needs to see him as the Stark his mother was. She falls into a dizzy, half-asleep state. Her dazed, unfocused eyes are still on Jon, her head still carefully resting on the curl of his shoulder when he slowly opens his eyes and unwittingly meets hers.

“Lady Sansa?” His voice comes raw from disuse, uncertain, low in her ear. “You survived?” He clears his throat and his voice comes clearer now: “The last thing I remember is seeing you fall back into the river.”

She doesn't reply at first, so difficult it has suddenly become to fully wake up. “Jon...” she half-whispers once she feels alert once more. She decides to skip the pleasantries. “We find ourselves in a terrible situation.”

The bastard looks around and she sees on his now well studied features the same dawning horror she must have had when she awoke. The room, the fire, the snow storm outside. He looks at her, curled into him, notices she's naked inside his embrace, that she has them both covered with furs. Odd as the situation must be for him, there is no time for shyness or a feeling of impropriety.

“We are in a wildling village north of the Wall, and I am to be held here a captive so long as Father agrees to subside them with food and furs.” She feels him disintegrate himself from her and try to sit up but he immediately winces and lies back down. It is Sansa now who props herself up, leaning on an elbow. She doesn't notice that the furs fall a little around her and is presenting Jon Snow a naked glimpse of his half-sister. As if they're not already in a messed up situation. She does notice his eyes slowly, almost unwillingly travel down to her forms but decides to remain still for a moment. “You're badly wounded. I don't know what their plans are for you.” But she's thinking of the redheaded man, Tormund, and hopes her words have gotten to him, that he at least entertains the notion that there's some truth to what she told him. “But I think they're planning to let you live.”

Jon sighs and looks at the ceiling, as if that is the least of their problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never intended to insert a wildling subplot to this story but as I was writing this chapter I thought of how could I make Jon and Sansa bond before she's whisked away to KL. The answer was simple - have them both whisked away to a cold and harsh place where they'll be the only two people to look after each other, where they could have intimate moments and huddle for warmth. Plus, it opened a whole new opportunities for plot development. ;)  
> Aesthetic for the chapter: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7a/37/6d/7a376d18bbf9e84ba4f3a8f8f65e0abf.jpg


	4. the war chief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little something I wrote down, I couldn't just leave you hanging. I've a hard exam this Saturday - wish me luck and hopefully next Wednesday, something big will be waiting for you in your inboxes, if you've already subscribed. ;)

“Get up, Tormund has come,” the spearwife tells her. For a brief instant Sansa's terrified eyes snap towards Jon Snow's closed, sleeping ones. “Here – clothes,” the woman continues and Sansa feels the weight of something that is supposed to be a dress and has a distinctly wildling look to it - made of soft pelts roughly stitched together. Then the spearwife leaves and closes the door.

Sansa slowly sits up and then stands, shrugging off the furs that are covering her. She wonders whether Jon Snow would have looked at her bare back, had he been awake, or perhaps he would have turned his gaze away.

Sansa follows the blond woman, resolved to make the best out of the situation she and her supposed half-brother find themselves in.

She might as well have been a Queen of Winter, dressed in those pelts, with that fierce pride in her eyes. Odd as it might seem, she would have cowered more before the Baratheon court and the intrigues at King's Landing but here - in the face of actual danger in the North, she is brave – she would not be frightened. Now she would summon every drop of Stark blood she has in her. She is to be bargaining more about his life than hers, after all - if she is reading the situation correctly.

Sansa is surprised to see the spearwife gone and only the red-bearded wildling from the riverside sitting in front of the table, suppering on meat and ale as he's waiting for her. She notices that there's food for one more person.

Once she enters the room, his eyes snap towards hers and he smiles at her. “Ah, there she is – the fierce daughter of Ned Stark. Have a seat, glass girl” he gestures. She sits on the other end of the table and looks at the food with studied indifference. “Don't be shy now, I know for a fact that you've barely eaten anything in days, save for those few times Yrra managed to feed you some broth.”

Sansa lets herself dig in with the ferocity of a wild animal and only remembers herself a few minutes later, to notice that Tormund is watching her with keen interest. She slows down immediately and meets his gaze evenly.

“You want to know more about Jon Snow,” she states, cutting down to the core reason of his arrival. She doubts that pleasantries and small talk would impress this wildling leader.

“I'm hardly here to talk about the weather,” he says sardonically. “It's not so interesting around here- cold enough to freeze your balls off, on a good day...” He looks at her apologetically. “Or tits, in your case.” Sansa tries not to seem embarrassed by the vulgar language and doesn't lower her eyes. “You spoke of a prophecy, how do you know if it's true?”

It's best she not tell him about her little brother's involvement in the situation.

“I… I've dreams,” she begins. He doesn't look impressed. “Dreams of the future – where the Others take over, and the Winter that comes is eternal.”

“So this bastard is useless after all,” he muses and takes a long sip from his ale.

“He's no bastard,” Sansa argues heatedly, but keeps her voice low enough so that Jon doesn't awake. “He's the lawful son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, born on the same day his parents married and died. His is the song of ice and fire – the one who's meant to lead the dragons North and destroy the Night's king.” A memory flickers in her mind, a story she once overheard, and Bran's words from her first dream suddenly take a new, chilling sense. “He is the prince that was promised.”

“Then why did he fail, in that future of yours?” Tormund asks, his eyes suddenly fierce and provocative. Something within Sansa stirs.

“ _Because we took too long_ ,” Sansa says and there's something final in her voice that she herself can't recognize. It's almost like she's suddenly the same woman that has lived through the darkness and the cold of the world to come. “Because it took too long to gather the armies and take the dragons, because the Night's king killed one of them and turned it into something even more terrifying than any of us could have imagined. Because the dragon has three heads and Daenerys died and they discovered that Tyrion was a Targaryen too late.” _Because Jon Snow lost his will to live_. But this she doesn't say. The chief of the village looks at her with an open mouth, so she takes the chance to continue. “And we have to be quicker now,” she says. “We don't have time for the petty wars of the South and we don't have time for the wildlings causing trouble.” Tormund huffs and looks ready for a heated speech of his own, but Sansa interrupts him. “What I mean is that the longer there's a freud between the North and the South of the Wall, the more people the Others take from you, and the larger their army gets. There's only one thing we can do...” Sansa's thought this through, while she lay in that bed, trying to calm herself and figure things out. “We have to get you to cross the Wall,” she says and Tormund, in his surprise, sits up straighter and leans closer to her. “All of you. Without protest from either of the parties.”

“And how do you propose we do that, glass girl?” he asks, his eyebrows risen to his forehead. “We tell all the world of your nightmares? You think the South would believe you?”

“They won't believe me,” Sansa agrees. “But they might at least start doubting their false sense of security if they start thinking their own eyes are deceiving them.”

“What?” Tormund suddenly barks.

“Jon wants to become a night watch,” Sansa says abruptly. “It all begins and ends with him. He has to lead the first troop of soldiers North of the Wall, he has to be the first one to see a wright and he has to be the one to take a wright to King's Landing and show the most powerful of the southron men that there's a threat far more menacing than their struggles for power. That history is being written at this moment and whoever agrees to help will have a place in the new world.”

“Does he know of your plans for him?” the red-bearded man asks.

“He doesn't,” Sansa replies with a shake of her head. “Not yet.”

Tormund looks at her with new appreciation. “You're cunning,” he observes. “Had you been a war chief, I'd have been wary.” Sansa thinks this is the greatest price she'd ever hear in the North.

“You're mistaken,” Sansa interruppts him, “if you think that in the future to come, I'll stand idly by and not lead my people in the battles to come.”

_A brief flicker of a memory – riding together with Jon, covered in armor, a sword resting on her hip, a sword she hopefully wouldn't have to use. Being here today is her idea, to boost the moral of the already demoralized army._

“ _I'm trusting you'll protect my queen on this day!” he shouts to his people. “So when you're fighting, think of her and the women and children and parents back home that you are saving!”_

“ _For the Queen!” they yell in unison._

_Sansa turns and meets the eyes of one of the generals – Arya nods and smiles at her but her smile is cold, the smile of someone whose thoughts are busy planning destruction and death. Her sister has painted herself with war paint of the ancient northern leaders, making her fierce grey eyes pop up even more. Sansa wonders if Arya's heart is beating against her ribs as wildly as her own._

Tormund pauses as he observes her silently. “If you're lying to me about anything, if you cheat me, Sansa Stark – pretty and cunning or not, I'll have your heart kissed by my sword.” He stands up and finishes his ale in one gulp. “I'll talk to Mance Rayder about you and the boy. Meanwhile, once you get better, I'll expect you to start making yourselves useful in this village and earn your food.”

“Goodnight, Tormund,” Sansa tells him calmly, with a polite smile.

He huffs in reply. As he exits, Sansa continues eating, her manners betraying no emotions, a perfect mask of calmness. “That went well,” she whispers to herself optimistically. She looks down at her hand, and only now allows it to tremble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should explore Sansa and Jon learning to live North of the Wall, with Mance Rayder making an appearance and wonderfully fucking things up further for our two heroes.  
> Please tell me what you think in the comment section bellow :)


	5. blending in

“Get up, glass girl,” someone tells her urgently. It seems this would be the manner Sansa would awake each morning while in wildling village. The words barely pierce through the daze and the haziness of the sleep that has _only now_ taken Sansa after Tormund's visit. “Your bastard's dying.”

Cold fear shoots through her heart even before she fully realizes what's wrong. “What?” she asks as she tries to get up. “How?”

“One of the wounds – the deeper one, is infected,” Yrra explains. “You must come with me.”

Sansa doesn't know how can she help but she stands up and follows the spearwife to the other room. As she becomes more alert, the redhead notices Jon Snow's ever growing moans. When she sees him, she freezes on place to take him in for a moment: his wet locks, his burning cheeks, his delirious moans, the torn bandages and the puss coming from the left side of his infected torso. She has never felt this much dread at the face of someone's agony. She has never _seen_ anyone agonizing before, and this is not the stuff of songs or poems – this is brutal, _unpretty_ reality. And she's not going to run away from it.

“Jon,” she calls him and is glad her voice is strong. Sansa goes to her father's ward and brushes a fallen wet lock of hair. The end of her fingers feel the unnatural heat of his forehead. “Look at me, Jon.” When he doesn't answer, she continues. “Look at me, you must not surrender, you have worse to fight than this.”

“Give him this,” Yrra orders as she hands her a foul-smelling infusion. They don't have time for Sansa's questions so she chooses to remain silent and as useful as she can possibly be.

Sansa caresses the boy's forehead and makes him raise his head a bit so he won't choke (though he _does_ choke on the obviously bitter taste of the infusion).

“Sansa,” he rasps. “Lady Sansa, please,” he begs her but she forces it down his throat.

Meanwhile Yrra is making a herbal paste in a brass mortar and then pours some wine into it.

“Stir it,” is her next order and she gives Sansa the mortar.

“Keep the direwolves,” Jon Snow mutters in his delirious state. Sansa briefly turns to look at Jon.

“ _Now_ , glass girl,” Yrra grits trough her teeth. Carefully, Sansa begins to stir the ingredients in the mortar, already almost smashed into fine paste, and brings it closer to her nose to smell it. It smells like garlic and wine and something else she can't quite place yet. Leeks, leeks it is.

“So this is wildling medicine,” Sansa says quietly.

“If you're gonna live here, you'll learn to call us free folk, glass girl,” Yrra remarks as she goes to the corner of the room where Sansa notices a small, open chest and takes a small glass bottle from there. She carefully uncorks it and dips a finger into it. Then she draws something on Jon's wooden bed – a rune that that can't be read South of the Wall by now. As she begins to paint different runes, Yrra begins a strange chant in the old tongue. Sansa can't translate the words for herself but goosebumps rise on her arms and her heartbeat speeds up as if it's a drum rhythm that accompanies the strange melody of Yrra's voice.

Sansa wants to ask about it but she knows she would not be answered now.

“The mortar,” Yrra says shortly. Once she has it in her hands, she massages the paste into the infected wound with unexpected gentleness. Almost instantly, Jon hisses in some greater pain.

“It _burns_!” the boy roars. Sansa instinctively reaches to grasp his hand – and realizes this is the single most humane act of caring she has shown the boy, odd prophetic dreams and hostage situations included.

“ _Don't_!” Yrra snaps and seizes her hand. “He'll break your fingers, he won't know his strength.” Sansa stands still, as if slapped and watches as the blond woman releases her hand and places her own on the palm of Jon's sweaty forehead. “Shhh,” the spearwife soothes and – quieter this time – sings him the ancient healing incantation from before.

Soon, he quietens.

“Is he-?” Sansa asks but can't finish.

“No, he's just fallen asleep.” Soon the Stark girl notices the spearwife is outstretching her hand to her, as if becoming her to grasp it. “It'll be easier,” she explains, “if someone from his kin is praying with me.”

“But I don't know how to pray to the old gods,” Sansa insists.

“You don't need words to pray,” Yrra says. “It's in your blood.”

The spearwife's hand is calloused but her touch is… different, electric – a healer's hand. Sansa takes it carefully and silently begs the old gods – she doesn't have the heart to lie and actually beg the Seven – for Jon Snow's survival. Sansa actually feels lightheaded now, Yrra's lullaby half lulling her to sleep, half startling her even more awake.

It is the first time she prays like this, but oddly enough – it feels like home and her father's embrace. But what are the odds that lord Stark is praying at this late hour - so late, in fact, that she hears a rooster's crow?

“I'm going to sleep for an hour,” Yrra tells her suddenly, startling Sansa from her half-asleep state. “Call me if anything happens.” Sansa nods. The woman looks like she's about to go, but then stops herself and says: “You didn't cower,” she tells her plainly, as if informing her.

The girl looks tired, a little pleased by the words but she says nothing. Instead she pulls up the cover towards the boy's chin and too tired to stay awake, with her shoulders stiff and painful from her cold, with her throat sore and her head heavy from the need to rest, Sansa falls asleep, resting her head upon the edge of Jon's bed. The first rays of the sun dawn on her but she fails to see this first sunrise across the Wall, she is already sleeping a dreamless sleep.

* * *

A few hours later Sansa awakens by the feel of Jon Snow's light touch. She slowly opens her eyes, notices it's already morning and meets his gentle gaze. Wordlessly, Sansa places her warm hand on his now cool one and breaths in a sigh of relief. The stress of the last night – realizing they're stolen into the North, Tormund's visit and Jon's crisis – are too much for her and the relief that it's a new day is so great that she sobs out.

“Hey,” Jon Snow says and his voice is raw from last night.

Sansa thinks back on the whole week and feels suddenly overwhelmed she can't believe her life could have changed so much in just a few days. She wants her parents, she wants Robb and Bran and Rickon, even Arya, and all she has now is Jon Snow. “Oh, Gods,” she suddenly says and another great sob tears itself from her.

“Sansa,” the young man says weakly. He doesn't remove his hand from her cheek but suddenly it feels more like comforting caress than a simple touch. She wants to comfort _him_ , to tell him anything – anything that isn't this pathetic sobbing.

_I've cried whole seas in my past life._

The sudden memory-thought distresses her and causes her to abruptly still.

“Theon's dead,” she says instead, after a moment. It comes out weary, tired – not the statement full of grief that her father's official ward deserves. “Yrra told me he fought well.”

Jon is silent for a whole minute it seems before he speaks again. “Yrra?” he asks breathlessly.

“The woman that saved your life.”

Jon shakes his head and smiles bitterly. “Such strangeness in this life,” he says. “The woman that saved me is from the same tribe that killed one of my closest friends.”

“We mustn't hate them, Jon,” Sansa insists, a note of sudden urgency in her voice. “They're fighting to survive. The Others are the real threat here -”

“The Others?” Jon repeats in disbelief. “You believe in this?”

“I do,” she tells him. But it wouldn't be a good decision to tell him of the visions of Bran, or that he is a Targaryen, or that in another future they were married and happy, or as happy as one could be when the world was ending.

Jon leans back into the bed and takes a deep breath, letting the subject go. “So,” he says, “what are we going to do now?” Sansa notices a small, sardonic smile playing on his lips. She replies with a smile of her own that is meant to convey the phantom of a courage that they both have.

“We'll try to make the best out of the situation we find ourselves in.”

Jon raises a brow. “We go hunting and warring with other wildlings-”

“-Free folk,” Sansa corrects him.

“-And… blend in?”

Sansa takes his hand between her two smaller ones, something she has wished to do since a few hours ago. “First, we both have to get better.” Upon Jon's questioning look, Sansa explains: “I seem to have had a fever, Yrra told me I was on the verge of dying too.” He squeezed her hand, unconsciously. “I'm glad you lived. We, wolves, should stick together.” The last words sound oddly familiar, almost as if she'd heard them before. _Arya_ , she suddenly thinks. Those are her words. Sansa wonders if present Arya misses her. She also briefly is haunted by the thought of the future Arya. If Jon was the last human descendant, then Arya must have died sometime before him. Of course it's a logical concept, and Robb and Rickon and her parents and so many other people had died before her. But the thought of wild Arya being… not here, is so... –

“I'm not a Stark,” Jon whispers after a moment.

“You are still my kindred.” She pauses. “Although, strange as it is, this is our longest conversation.” Jon rasps a laugh Sansa is surprised to notice is infectious and she almost smiles. Then she looks towards the window and finally sees the first morning sun of the strange new place they find themselves in.

* * *

Jon sleeps a lot while he recuperates and though Sansa herself doesn't feel her best, she gets terribly bored during those first days. Yrra's busy, Tormund is off to see Mance Rayder or on some other nefarious mission and everybody else is forbidden to come to the house under the threat of death, or so Yrra told her before she left.

When Jon is awake, Sansa either helps him, or talks with him about anything and everything. In those few days they get to know each other better than they did their whole lives. When he's asleep, she sometimes just sits idly, drinking the herbal infusions Yrra left for her, ponders on what she and Jon would do from now on, wonders if her father is trying to get them back but all these thoughts do little to help her restlessness and agitation. Sometimes she tries to sleep, but after that first night it never feels so safe to sleep in the room with the front door, so she almost always sticks to the second room, where Jon is. Sometimes she stands up and walks around the hut which is only two rooms so it proves of little entertainment for her.

During the first day, the redhead notices the scrolls first – they're not many, this is the far North after all, but they surprise Sansa more than she expects.

 _Medicine_ _texts_ , she realizes. For a brief moment she wonders who the Maester of the village is but then the answer comes, obvious – Yrra, she's the healer here.

* * *

“I've been thinking,” Ned Stark's daughter tells the blond warrior when she returns a few hours later.

“Oh,” is all Yrra says as she tilts her head a little to hear her.

“I do well with the stitches, I could be useful,” Sansa says quickly. “And Tormund said we should yearn our food once we get better.”

“What do you propose, glass girl?” Yrra asks with a hint of amusement. “That you make dresses for us “wildling girls” and make us worthy of your golden capitol?”

“I can help you with the coats, and -” she hesitates, “don't mistake me for an empty-headed fool just because I'm from the 'South'.”

Yrra is silent for a minute, minding her own business around the house, but then she tells her: “We have to wait for another two weeks before we have furs for new coats, that's when Lord Stark will bring his first delivery.” Sansa doesn't think the spearwife is going to say anything more but then she adds: “Good to know you're good with the stitches though.” Sansa quirks a brow, wondering if Yrra's mocking her. “You could help me stitch the wounded when the need comes.”

“I-” Sansa stutters, “I don't think I'll be good at that, I… the sight of blood distresses me.”

“You sure coped well last night,” Yrra observes.

“It was _Jon_.”

“So you can help your bastard brother but you can't help poor sods who are bound to die without proper care?”

Sansa takes a deep breath to calm herself. “I'm not being unfair! I just don't think I'll be able to help you!”

Yrra gives her a long stare. “Listen to me, glass girl,” she told her harshly. “This is the North, the bitter North, and there's no place for insipid, little things like you. Your dresses and singing can't help you against the Others, against the direwolves or the cold. Sure, make coats, do whatever you wish, but when bleeding warriors come, if the wounds are deep enough, I expect you to help me with the stitching.”

Sansa is first surprised, but then rails back in anger. “You can't just expect to order me around! I'm a _captive_ here, if it weren't for your people, I'd have been on my way to marry prince Joffrey!”

But then she stops herself, as if slapped. Would she have done it? Knowing all the things she now knows, could she have really gone back to the path she had mapped down for herself? Had she done it in this past future?

“You're right,” Yrra tells her, snapping her from her thoughts. “You're a captive here and you'll do as you're told.”

Sansa huffs but doesn't bother to say anything more.

Yrra searches for something in the two chests in the front room but when she doesn't find what she's looking for, she speaks to a bemused Sansa again. “You're obviously feeling better now if you're able to flare up like this. I have to go to one of the more distant huts, one of the women is having a baby. You and the boy have spent almost all of my herbal supplies. I'll send Bresa to fetch you and take you to the weirwood.”

“The weirwood?”

“That's where we grow most of our herbs, so they'd be blessed by the gods and heal those who are meant to survive sooner,” Yrra explains. “Bresa will tell you which herbs you need and what they're meant to do, that at least she knows, even if fighting is her forte. I'll leave you the coat and the boots of a woman who died recently. They will do for now, I'll send them to you by Bresa.”

And without explaining _who_ Bresa is, Yrra goes out and closes the door behind her.

* * *

Sansa is sitting by Jon's bed, feeding him broth when she first notices the odd look on his face.

“What?” she asks as she returns the spoon to the bowl. She twists her lips to one side and raises her brows in a funny, friendly grimace towards him.

“I don't think we're quite the same people anymore,” he tells her quietly.

“No,” Sansa muses as she looks down. “I suppose not.”

“Sansa, I want to thank…-”

But right at this moment they both hear a knock on the front door and someone coming inside.

“Hello, kneelers!” a girl's soprano voice cheerfully says before she even enters their room. Before they have the chance to do much else than put aside the bowl of broth, a young girl, redheaded like Sansa strides into the room.

“Oh, my,” she says as she stops in front of the two of them. “You're quite pretty,” she marvels.

“Thank…-” Sansa begins to say.

“I was talking to your brother,” the girl corrects her quickly. Sansa quickly looks towards Jon, who – she now takes full notice, isn't wearing any clothes from the waist up, only bandages. The two of them share an amused look.

“Thank you,” Jon says with a sardonic smile.

“You're Bresa?” Sansa says and turns to look at the girl, who quickly nods.

“Yrra told me to take you to the weirwood,” she says. “I'm not much of a healer, I know as much as anyone who's ever seen the battlefield should know. I can show you the herbs and roots you need to gather for Yrra.”

“I want to come with you,” Jon says, clearly distrustful at sending Sansa off to this new place full of hostile people, as far a he is concerned.

“Yrra said you must rest for a few more days,” Sansa reproaches him. She then turns to the new girl. “But how old are you?”

“Fourteen,” Bresa says proudly. “I've been to two battles, both between our tribe and another one. But I did almost have to fight a White Walker once.”

“So you've seen them?” Jon asks in surprise.

“Almost everyone has seen them, at one point or another,” Bresa says matter-of-factly. Then she looks at Sansa with vague confusion. “I thought I overheard Tormund say that you also know of the Others…?” she inquires.

“I-” Sansa doesn't know what to reply in front of Jon.

“He was telling Yrra of your prophetic dreams about them.”

Sansa turnes to see Jon's face, which suddenly seems on guard. That hurts – in the last few days he never once tried to hide his feelings from her. Sansa understands he probably feels betrayed that she never once told him of those dreams.

She grasps his hand, which he almost draws away, but she holds him in place. “I'll tell you later, alright?”

He hesitates a little, his gaze never leaving hers, and then slowly nods. “Alright.”

Then she turns to Bresa. “It's not nice to eavesdrop other people's conversations, you know?”  
“They are my parents, so it's not so bad,” Bresa says with a shrug.

“Yrra and Tormund are married?” Sansa asks, surprised – she'd never seen them together.

“What? Gods, no,” Bresa quickly says. “They released each other from their vows years ago. I have an older half-brother from my father's first wife – she was turned by the Others, and after that he took my mother, so she would care for the babe. But after that they both decided they couldn't be together anymore, my father took another wife who bore him my two sisters, and mother took Loknor and bore him a son, my younger brother has yet to see his first fight.”

“But...” Sansa began, confused. “why aren't you and your brother and her husband here?”

“We live in Loknar's hut, he's a good man, but not so good in fights. This cabin is where we used to live before she and Loknar made their vows but she prefers to treat the wounded and the sick here. She's so fiercely independent, even for the free folk.”

“Is fighting all you care about?” Sansa asked, curious. Bresa nods but then her eyes turn to Jon Snow.

“...For now,” she says vaguely.

Sansa stood up. “Yrra told me you'd carry a coat,” she says suddenly.

“Yes, it's on the table in the other room,” Bresa replies without tearing her eyes from Jon. “Along with boots.”

“Right,” Sansa says and stands up. She hurries outside and puts on the coat and the boots as fast as she can, suddenly forgetting that those were the wear of someone who recently died. “Let's go!” she calls enthusiastically.

She hears Bresa say goodbye to Jon and soon they are both outside the hut.

Sansa suddenly realizes how much she has missed the fresh air. She looks around, her eyes drinking in the new scenery both with fear and newfound appreciation.

She is surprised that she doesn't see many people around the hut. As Bresa leads her away from her mother's cabinet, Sansa observes everything around her. The housing structures, as to be expected, are small, primitive and made of wood.

“What's _your_ family like?” Bresa asks while they walk.

“My mother is a Lady,” is the first thing Sansa says. “She's somehow both strict and warm. She has the prettiest eyes.” With a sudden pang she realizes how much she misses her and needs her right now. “My father is good and kind and honorable. I think under different circumstances you, free folk, would have liked him.” Bresa smirks. “And I've a brother Robb who's brave and gentle and handsome and he's the best brother and friend, everyone loves him.”

“Is he as pretty as this one?” the girl asks. Sansa just shakes her head in a vague gesture that she isn't having this conversation and then laughs.

“I have a younger sister, Arya is her name and she's just like a spearwife, she can't ever be chained down to anything and anyone, she loves fighting. She, Jon, Robb and Th–... and Theon, were inseparable...” She misses Arya. She wants to see Bran again, and hear him laugh with Rickon. She wonders if it would have felt the same, leaving them all for King's Landing.

“Then where did this leave you?” Bresa asks suddenly, eying her as though she suddenly sees her in a new light.

“I never belonged there,” Sansa replies slowly, as though it doesn't matter so much anymore. “I always wanted to leave, to marry a southron lord and be a proper lady in the court of King's Landing.” She smiles. “I was going to become betrothed to the prince, Joffrey Baratheon,” Sansa says as she suddenly stops. “I was going to become a queen.”

_A memory of his hands, of his soothing voice, as he cradles her face in his arms.“Is this what you really want, Sansa?”_

Bresa turns back to give her a questioning look. “None of it matters now,” Sansa says with a sudden calm as she continues walking. _I should tell him soon_. This is the first time the thought occurs to her. “This was a different life, we were different people.”

They pass something that resembles a village center, which means that there is a small open area around which all the houses seem to revolve, and in the middle there is a well. Here Sansa finally sees some people - two women and a young boy who openly stare at her with avid curiosity. Sansa turns towards Bresa who just raises her eyebrows and smiles.

They pass by the well, soon after the end of the village and enter a small forest.

“I wouldn't be so sure this is behind you,” Bresa says unexpectedly. Sansa has trouble remembering what the girl is referring to.

“What do you mean?”

“Everybody here knows of Ned Stark's fierce resolution to get you back,” Bresa explains. “He's at Castle Black, along with his army and he is trying to change the rules of the treaty. He wants you and Jon Snow back, he is prepared to offer us the food and skins we wanted, if we give you back. He'll make this claim to Mance Rayder in two weeks, when we go to the Wall for the first delivery.”

“Is Mance going to accept?” Sansa asks, her voice betraying her sudden spark of emotion.

“I don't know,” Yrra's girl tells her sincerely. “If he learns of your prophetic dreams, he might want to make you stay.”

“But Father's army-”

“There's always the chance we'll slit you and your half-brother's throats open while his army approaches us for an attack. Pretty though the two of you are,” Bresa says the latter as an afterthought and smirks.

“Why would I be so important?” Sansa asks as she kicks a pebble, something she hasn't done since she was a child.

“You could always predict when the Others, and the enemy tribes are going to attack.”

“This isn't how my dreams work!” Sansa tells her in frustration.

“Then I suggest you explain it to him, when you see him,” is all Bresa says on the matter. “We've arrived.”

For the first time Sansa takes notice of the small meadow they're in, of the direwood in the middle of the ordinary trees. And then faintly-

“Bresa,” Sansa asks suddenly. “What's this… buzzing?”

“I don't hear anything.” The girl gives her an odd look. “Maybe you're a greenseer and the tree calls to you,” she says then. “That would explain the dreams.”

“But I haven't had them for long,” Sansa says stubbornly.

“Look, I'm not someone who knows these stuff,” Bresa says. “Maybe it was dormant, maybe something awoke it. I don't know.”

“But nothing-”

 _Bran_.

The thought strikes her.

Bran happened. He sent her the vision, he sent his consciousness into her, as he lay there dying in the roots of the tree. Somehow Sansa can see him now, in her mind's eye, almost as if she really has been there. Her little brother, crawling towards the roots, bleeding. _He couldn't walk_. _Not for a long time._ Catching the roots, sending his mind back with his last breath.

But _still_ , the memory continues. She remembers seeing his body, she remembers the stillness of the world around her. She remembers flying away into a winter storm so cold she freezes and falls.

_I want to see them again._

Sansa's mind reels. What is happening to her?

“ _ **You have to remember… in reverse,**_ ” Bran has told her. Is this what she's doing?

“Do you want to touch it?” Bresa suddenly asks, snapping her from her stupor.  
“Touch what?” Sansa asks, feeling a little dizzy.

“The tree.”

Without replying anything, Sansa draws near it, feeling the buzzing not only intensify, but also _vibrate_ within her. This tree looks even sadder than the rest, its face twisted in an unimaginable grief.

Sansa almost feels the core, so close her fingers are. She almost feels the release when –

“No,” she shakes her head suddenly and pries away her fingers. Almost as if her resolve shattered the strange magical haze she was feeling, the buzzing stops. “Not yet.” Then she turns to Bresa who's giving her a curious look. “Show me the herbs we have to gather. I must learn to recognize them.”

The young spearwife slowly nods.

* * *

That night, Yrra and Bresa stay in the cabin, and Sansa and Jon get to meet Bjorn, Bresa's little brother who rather reminds Sansa of a blond and blue-eyed version of Rickon. The little boy stays in Jon's room and keeps him company while the women are in the process of preparing a supper, with Sansa observing them. They're cooking dried meat with beans and parsley.

Two other wildlings, as both “kneelers” sometimes still slip, come to get checked by Yrra – a woman, who wants moon tea, and a man who needs some milk of poppy for his wound (one that, incidentally, Jon has delivered during the raid in the woods). The man is the same one that caught her by the ankle in the forest all those days ago. Sansa still doesn't like the way he looks at her.

“Shouldn't the girl try to cook something? You aren't her servants from the South, after all,” he notes.

Sansa looks towards the two women – mother and daughter – and is surprised when Bresa speaks: “She really should start getting used with having no one to help her wipe her arse off, she's not better than us,” the girl tells her mother.

Yrra gives Sansa a long look and nods. “I told you you should start fending for yourself. It's enough that you're eating on my table and sleeping in my beds.” Sansa can't even express gratitude about this, she's a captive here after all. “When that bastard of yours gets well, he'll have to start building his own hut, and you may live there until you marry someone.”

“I'm _not_ -” Sansa begins to protest.

“You _might_ ,” Yrra interrupts her. “You never know, we have quite the charmers here.” Sansa throws a disgusted look towards the man who began the conflict in the first place.

“It'll take Jon _years_ to build a house!”

“If he proves himself to the men, they'll gladly help him. It'll take no more than a few weeks. We've learned how to quickly construct buildings, if not, we'd have all frozen over.” Yrra smiles. “I'm not cruel, you'll see. I'll give you the cabin until you step on your feet and learn to live as a part of us.”

“Now cook us something!” the man says loudly, as though he too has decided to remain for dinner, even after getting the infusion. The woman too sits by him and Sansa suddenly wonders if they're promised to one another. As the two of them sit down, he casually rubs the woman's knee, confident and leering, and upon seeing the woman's reaction – as if this is something natural and pleasant, Sansa concludes that they are indeed together.

She remains still only for a minute before she goes over to where Yrra is standing, takes the knife from her and starts chopping the parsley.

“I'll still prepare the corn bread,” Yrra tells her.

Sansa finds chopping the parsley harder than she expects. She supposed it wouldn't be this difficult of a feat, after all other female jobs come naturally for her.

It's at this moment when Bjorn comes out from Jon's room, bored because Jon has fallen asleep.

Sansa listens to the conversation of the free folk around her, ignores the intense looks of the man, ignores the demanding glare of the woman, and continues on chopping the parsley.

* * *

When she later enters Jon Snow's room, he surprises her with his sudden exclamation: “Wait!” Her anxiety eases when she notices his smile. He is sitting on his bed but then hesitantly gets up on his feet, even if a little unsteadily. Sansa gives him a look of surprise.

“Jon, it's too early!” she tells him but the only thing she gets in reply is his wolfish smile.

“I'm a strong man, I already feel better.” He does throw her a short shy glance. “Besides I already practiced with Bjorn. He is rather similar to Rickon, don't you think?” Sansa smiles warmly at him and nods.

She means to go to him but sensing her intentions, he gives her another sudden “Wait!”. And then slowly proceeds to move towards her, the wolfish, courageous smile returning to his soft, dark features, which are now marred with a growing beard.

Sansa quickly puts aside the plate of dried meat and bread on the small table by the door. Which turns out to be a very good decision, seeing as just as he comes right in front of her, he looses balance and almost falls into her. She embraces him just in time and steadies him. He laughs in the crook of her neck and her fingers instinctively, unconsciously, by some long-forgotten memory a little inappropriate for the occasion, bury themselves in his dark curls.

Across her shoulder, he notices the food. “What happened to the stew Bjorn told me Yrra was making?” Then he rises up to look at her and gently caresses her clammy, pale forehead and then her cheekbone. “You're pale,” he observes worriedly.

Sansa frowns at the memory of her attempt at cooking and tries not to retch. “I spoiled it.” Upon his arched brow, she just huffs and smiles sourly. “You don't want to know.” She helps him sit on the chair next to the table so he could dine and then proceeds to throw herself on his bed and groans. He keeps his eyes on her, amused by her cavewoman antics, as he wolfs down the food surprisingly quickly and silently. After a minute she begins again: “They made me eat it and I almost got sick but Yrra gave me tea from mint and mugwort and told me only the rich southrons were allowed to be sick. Then they all went away.” Jon looks at her slowly, something foreign written on his face for her, perhaps care and affection. “I promise I'll get better at it though!” she says, feeling challenged. Another silence settles then and the matter of the food is slowly forgotten.

 

Jon slowly rises on his feet and comes to sit by the bedside. Maybe he notices the way she turns to look at him, ocean eyes drinking him in, because he leans down a little and cradles her face with both his hands.

“Sansa,” he begins, and his voice is softer and gentler than she remembers ever hearing it, almost a whisper, almost like the rustling of the leaves during late spring. “All we have is each other now. We have to trust each other.” He then catches her hand and kisses its knuckles. “Please, whatever it is you're hiding, know that I'm your confident, I'll never judge you.”

In that moment, Sansa wants to kiss him. But she can't, not yet. First she must tell him some things. Of the vision, of Bran, of his mother. Not completely _everything_ though, she’s not ready to tell him she remembers how he tastes, or how he feels inside of her, or how her heart still sometimes sings the song of him, tenderly and softly- like how one would sing to the stars. 

She has swallowed his yells, his cries, his sobs, with hungry lips. She has held him in her arms in vastly different circumstances. She has stood by his side during battle, she has heard him sing lullabies to their unborn babe, she has held power over him so great that it sometimes terrified her. But all of this hasn’t happened yet, and maybe it would never come to pass this time.

She rises her hand and caresses with her thumb the upper side of his cheek. He is not distracted by this act, but unconsciously still leans into her touch. So lost in her awe that her mouth opens a little, she forgets, doesn't notice, that they both act like lovers, and not what they're supposed to be.

“Alright,” is what she tells him at first, melting under the warmth of his eyes. And then she begins, with the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last! I've updated! To make up for the long wait, the chapter's almost 6k words. Next chapter will be written a lot quicker, I hope, because it will also be a lot shorter. Jon will depart for the Wall with the free folk to help with the delivery from the south and hopefully he'll see Ned. Meanwhile Sansa will meet Mance Rayder and return to that tree that so called out to her.  
> What are your thoughts on the new chapter? Do you think Sansa's a greenseer or maybe the answer lays somewhere else? :) What do you think will be Jon's reaction to her tale?


	6. pale moonlight on the window sill

Sansa looks at Jon’s hands, because she can’t look him in the eyes now. “A fortnight ago, on your name day,” she says, as if hesitating a little, “I dreamed of our king, dying in the great Winter’s snow, clutching at his crown. Our family’s words true at last, but something much greater than the Winter had come with it.”

“The Others?” Jon guesses half-jokingly. Sansa’s eyes snap up to his for an angry instant and then looks away, to the falling snow outside the window. _That_ night had been rather similar.

“You may ridicule me now, but bear with me a little longer and you’ll know why Tormund Giantsbane spared your life.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says softly.

Sansa doesn’t speak up at first, waiting for her irritation at his attitude to quell. “That was… the last night of mankind.” She searches Jon’s gaze suddenly, hoping he wouldn’t misunderstand her this time. “I’m sorry, I began it all wrong – it was not a dream, but a memory of the near future.” She sees his mouth fall open a little in surprise. “A memory not fully even my own, but that of the Three Eyed Raven.”

“The three eyed raven?” the pale boy asks.

Sansa smiles minutely. “A greenseer. Our brother Bran will become this being one day.” Poor Jon looks like he already is struggling with all this news. Sansa wonders how to say it all in such a way that would not overwhelm him too much but realizes that there is no such way – Jon would have to bear with it. “Bran saw the last battle – between _our_ king and the king of the Others, he saw the fall of our king and the victory of the dead and did the only thing he could do in such a moment – he sent his soul to the past, to change it.” Here she struggles a little to explain it, because Bran himself told her only a few dreams ago. “Because present Bran is still a boy, nothing has awakened his greensight, and the Three Eyed Raven’s consciousness wandered until it found the one person who was most emotionally affected by the death of the king.” Sansa looks towards the window again, looks at the snowflakes animated by the wind.

“…You?” Jon says gently. “Why you?” Sansa doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even know if she should continue. He exhales suddenly, as if the air has been knocked out of him. “You were his queen,” he realizes. For a while, the only sound in the room is the cackling fire in the fireplace and the wind wailing at the window from outside, the only movement between them is that of the flames.

“The first memory was of that dying king,” Sansa says again. “Others followed after that but they did not care if it was night or day, they came in dreams and visions, I was so horrified at first, I did not know how to stop them.”

_“The fates have promised you a prince.”_

_A man is walking slowly towards her, rubies sewn to his tunic like his father before him. His smile - warm just for her. Crownless are his dark curls for the first time today. “So,” he says quietly as he nears her, “it is done.” With a weary sigh, he kisses her – softly, slowly, the kindest of kisses - to chase away the bitterness of a power he does not want. “You're queen now,” he breathes into her mouth._

_'I'll be with them soon,' the thought dawns on her. 'With Father and Mother and Robb and Rickon. Perhaps I'll now be able to hold my babe in my arms.' It's almost sweet now, but in her dying moments she is grieving for what she leaves behind._

“The morning Rickon was lost-” Jon realizes, “that was the day. You were so pale then.”

“There’s a secret between my brother and me,” Sansa murmurs and she sees a glimpse of worn-out and tired bitterness at the mention of ‘ _her_ brother’. “But I’ll share it with you now.” She swallows, and prepares herself to crumble the foundation of his world. She feels sorry. “Rickon was hiding in the crypts when I found him, not in the glass gardens. He made me follow him to aunt Lyanna’s statue. We hid so that Father wouldn’t see us... We hid, so he didn’t know he’d be breaking his promise and revealing the truth of your parentage.”

“What?” Jon started, as if this is the most surprising part of the tale. If he were standing, he would have stumbled.  Sansa nods and wonders if she should take his hand but decides against it.

“Jon, it’s not my place to tell you, but not knowing will do you only harm in what’s to come. Whatever you think after this, you must know you were loved and cherished.”

“Who was she?” Jon asks harshly, having no patience for anything but the name Sansa will give him. Still, the girl persists, because she knows he’ll stop hearing everything after the revelation.

“She was too young, and he was too much of a romantic. He left his wife and children for her, he _abandoned_ everything. And so did she. He married her instead, on the day they both died, the day you were born.” He’s realized by now that this means Ned Stark can’t possibly be his father, Sansa observes, judging by his clouding face. He’s probably a breath away from realizing who his true parents were. “But the man she was _supposed_ to marry made a war out of it. He and his allies killed almost each member of your father’s family - it was named the greatest regicide in the history of the Seven kingdoms. This was why your mother, in her dying breath, begged her brother to never reveal to anyone your true name, Jaehaerys Targaryen.”

“Is this a joke?” Jon huffs angrily. “Is this some trick, for you to pass time beyond the Wall, to cure your boredom?”

Sansa regards him coolly. “You think we’ve time for jokes in the circumstances we find ourselves in? You’ll see Father in a two weeks’ time, correct? Ask him then. Ask him and see for yourself.”

A new kind of stilled and icy silence settles then, with Jon lost in thought, and Sansa trying to read him correctly and find the right way to console him.

After she sees the moon is already high up in the sky, Sansa decides to speak but Jon beats her to it.

“You said they killed almost, _almost_ everyone.”

Sansa nods. “Four more live, to my knowledge. Master Aemon in the Night’s Watch, Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen, exiled in Essos… and Tyrion Lannister.”

Jon actually does a double-take. “And Tyri-…Tyrion Lannister?” he repeats.

“He is the Mad King’s son…” Sansa trails off. “The dragon must have three heads,” she says to herself.

Jon’s reaction is a bit unexpected. He actually laughs. “This is too much,” he says in that half-mocking, half-offended tone of his, stands up. “This is _too_ much.” Unfortunately, he seems to have forgotten that he’s wounded because he winces all-too-soon. Still, he seems bent on escaping her, so she just stands up from the bed and tells him:

“If you wish to be alone, I shall be the one to leave.”

“No,” he counters. “I need some fresh air.”

“Let me help you,” Sansa says and for a long moment she’s sure he’ll refuse, that stubborn man, but then he nods slowly.

“Thank you,” he says, if a bit stiffly.

She catches him by the crook of the elbow and helps him outside the cabin. There’s no one in the second room, Yrra and the others already having left.  He sits on the stump used for cutting down logs and stares resolutely towards the dark horizon.

She doesn’t need to be told that he needs his space, so she enters inside once more, taking an armful of logs with her for the fireplace. Once inside, she throws a few in the fire and notices Jon’s new cloak laid by the table.

‘He must be so cold outside,’ she thinks and hurries to take it to him. He still has the same posture as before, unmoved by the coldness, unbothered by it, his mind processing too many things at once.

Sansa silently lays the great fur cloak around his shoulders, and makes sure that it covers him well. Before she leaves, he catches her arm. Her heart flutters, and she swiftly turns to look at him.

“That king,” Jon began with a hoarse voice. “That man you said was the last king…” He still doesn’t turn to meet her eyes. “Which House was he from?” Sansa’s eyes fill with tears and she can’t speak, is unwilling to share this last secret. “ _Sansa_ ,” Jon urges, more gently this time. The softness of his voice might have made a few cracks in her heart and she can’t lie to him, not anymore.

“He was from House Targaryen,” is all she says before she enters inside once more. It isn’t difficult for her, his hand falls from her as if wounded with an arrow. She hesitates at the door because she hears his raspy intake of breath, followed by an anguished hiss, but wills herself to continue.

It’s so much warmer inside the hut that her body actually shivers from the change in temperature. Sansa sits by the window, from where she watches Jon Snow’s still back a few meters away. Does he shake every few minutes from the cold or from muffled cries that she cannot hear? She wishes she could go and comfort him but she knows this is something he has to deal with by himself. But she’ll watch over him, like she vows to always do this time around. She’ll protect him now, just as she’ll protect herself.

Sansa leans her head on the wall of the room and with the man that would become the king to her queen outside, she drifts to sleep.

* * *

_“Remember when we used to dream of going back to the past?” he asks, while she is leaning against his chest. “Back to the day we left Winterfell?”_

_Sansa nodds into his neck and gulps back a sob. “I wanted you to come with me.” And for the first time in a long while, she allows herself to swear. “This is too fucked up without you, Jon. I need you.”_

_He looks down at her, his eyes tender with love and life. “You have me.”_

_“I want **you** , the one who was there with me through it all.”  He tucks away a lock of her hair behind her ear. “ **This** you is not mine.”_

_He only smiles. “I’ll be with you - always.”_

* * *

Sansa opens her eyes and doesn’t know why remembering this dream hurts so much. It’s not a dream of the messed up future she has grown so familiar with, it was just some subconscious desire to have the Jon that died in that bitter cold, whispering her name as if it was salvation.

“Hey.” Sansa turns to see Yrra, crouching on the chair in front of the bed, looking at her with uncharacteristic compassion. Her hands are occupied with making a paste of herbs and tallow in the mortar, but the healer seems already so used to these kind of things, she doesn’t need to pay complete attention to them.

“What’s wrong?” Sansa asks. “What’s happened? Something with Jon?”

The woman shakes her head. “No, he’s alright. He went to the well.”

It has been almost two weeks since Sansa shared the truth of her dreams to him but he’s evaded her ever since, growing stronger by the day and slowly beginning to prove himself to the free folk. His stiff composure in her presence, his unnatural silence dejected her and in turn made her angry. Only once more did they talk on the matter of her prophetic dreams, when he asked her if they had continued. Sansa shook her head and told him that they rarely appeared anymore. Upon his next question - if she knew why, she answered: ‘Because I remember _everything_ now.’ And they spoke no more. At all.

The Stark girl tried to tone down the bitterness but in this strange new world, it was hard. She focused on studying this new, ancient method of healing, she even forced herself, out of sheer anger at being so pitiful, to be steady when she stitched up her first man, a young blond boy by the name of Rorick, bitten by a wolf.

Presently, an already familiar bout of jealousy surges through her and erases any previous melancholy. “With Bresa?” she asks, trying to control the sound of her voice.

Yrra shakes her head again, her unreadable face transforming into a smug, knowing smile. “Alone.” Then she stands up and sets the mortar on the table. “I need more herbs,” the healer says. “You know the way already, and the things you need to collect?”

Sansa nods, enthusiastically, with feeling. “Let me grab my cloak,” she says and quickly stands up.

“Be sure to not take too long,” Yrra warns. “Your brother and the other man leave for the Wall within an hour.”

Sansa nods again, while already grabbing her cloak and runs out of the door.

Before, she wouldn’t have ran. A lady never runs. It is improper. But after a month with the free folk, she knows that they’d actually look down on her if they see her struggle to keep her proper lady act.

So she allows herself a moment to think the blessed: ‘ _Fuck_ propriety’ and passes by the people in the village, the men and spearwives with their horses (some of them, even when in a hurry, she notices are from other tribes).

She even sees Jon by the well and the taste in her mouth turns sour when she notices that Bresa is there with him after all, holding the reins of two horses in each hand. She and Jon are quietly talking about something, when Jon notices her but Sansa pays him no mind (forces herself to ignore him), and hurries past them.

The redhaired girl only feels she can breathe once she sees the weirwood. There, she gives a great sigh and starts mentally telling herself the list of herbs and roots she needs to collect. She also reminds herself to gather the pine sap from the bucket Yrra told her to get.

She can still hear the strange buzzing coming from the weirwood and wonders if she’ll see Bran when she touches it. She misses even this strange and sad version of her brother. How alone he too must have been, all this time.

Sansa shakes her head, she feels like she shouldn’t, not now, she must focus simply on gathering the herbs and going back to send off the men.

She quickly gathers all that she needed, the sap from the pine trees she puts inside a vial that Yrra has given her.

Sansa’s just reaching for the remaining thing on her list – a few shoots of mugwort – when she hears the sound of horse hooves nearing. Startled, she looks towards the source of the noise and sees that the horseman is almost upon her and could possibly trample her. The girl falls back on the ground and the raider manages to stop his horse, even if the poor animal has to stand on its hind legs for a moment with a distressed whinny. When it gets down, the man – dressed in dark pelts, with dark hair and dark eyes – caresses the head of the horse to calm it down.

“It’s alright,” he says soothingly. “Are you well?” It takes her another moment to realize that he is quite older than her.

Sansa, who hasn’t realized she has been clutching at her heart, quickly lets her hand fall and stands up. “I am,” she replies curtly. “Thank you.”

The raider gets off his steed. “I was talking to the horse,” he says and that rather puts her off. “You should hone your hearing,” the man advices amicably. “It may save your life here one day.” He then gives her a second glance. “You’re the kneeler girl then? The one my men stole alone with that bastard? Ned Stark’s daughter.”

“I am.”

He then smiles appreciatively but doesn’t say anything at first. Sansa suddenly feels self-conscious, perhaps at the mention of her lord father, and she starts to brush away the dirt from her cloak and dress.

“I’ll be seeing your father soon,” he tells her nonchalantly and kneels in front of the weirwood to pray silently. “Anything you want me to tell him?” Sansa dares not interrupt him until he’s done.

Sansa thinks of all she wants to tell her father then, while that dark man prays. She wants to tell him not to accept to become the king’s hand. She wants to ask if the king arrived at all, when she and Jon were captured. She can hardly imagine the man that was her lord father entertaining royal guests while two of his children are in danger, on the other side of the Wall. Unless he’d called for Robert’s troops, to raid the North – but she doesn’t think her father is a stupid man who’d dare provoke the free folk that held his son and daughter. Whatever troops king Robert possesses, they aren’t equipped to lead a reconnaissance mission, even the warriors of the noble northern houses would not be stealthy enough to pass through the scouts of the free folk. In whatever way Ned Stark wanted to get his children back, it would have to be fair and square.

For a brief and foolish moment, she wonders if he’d still betroth her to Joffrey if he gets her back. She wonders if she’ll live through another King’s Landing and everything that followed.

“Well?” the dark man asks when he gets up.

“Tell him I love him,” is all Sansa has settled on saying by then. “Let him tell my lady mother, my sister and brothers the same.” 

The dark man gives her another appreciative smile. “Such a sweet daughter your father has,” he tells her. Sansa gives him a little smile. “So,” he begins again, giving her a side-glance. “How does the North treat you?”

Sansa looks ahead, towards the weeping face of the weir tree. “Well,” she replies. “I’ve taken to learning your healing ways, and Yrra even had me stitch up a man -good thing I’ve always done well with the stitching… Jon Snow, my bastard brother, is building a hut for us, and I expect it’ll be completed soon after you return from the Wall.” The man nods, seemingly pleased with the news. “Not that we intend to stay for long.”

“Hm, I’m not so sure about that,” he tells her.

Sansa steels her spine.

“Mance Rayder… Oh, don’t be so surprised that I realized you’re the leader of the free folk… We fight for the same goal – to survive.” The man looks at her as if he’s getting acquainted with her for the second time this day. “If you can, bring one of those creatures in front of the Wall, make my Father realize the danger they pose to us all. Plant the idea for all of us on the southron side. Their army will only grow from now on, and we have mere years before the Wall is destroyed. We need to act fast.”

Mance Rayder stands up. “When Tormund told me you know things, I thought him a fool. I thought you’d only lied to save your brother’s life. Or cousin’s, if what you say is true. But maybe there’s something to your words that rings true.”

Sansa begins to gather her things. “All I know, I learned from the Three Eyed Raven,” she says quietly and turns to go. “Have a safe journey, Mance Rayder. I wish you good luck in your future endeavors.”

She can feel his gaze on her back as she walks and doesn’t quite understand why she suddenly feels so ill at ease.

* * *

Sansa can barely remember running to the cabin and leaving the medicine supplies. She hurries to the end of the village, where she knows the departing men will be. Out of breath, the girl worries she’ll miss Jon but as she approaches, she sees she needn’t have worried.

Some of the men are already riding ahead but he’s silent by his horse, a forlorn expression on his face. Only Tormund and a few other men are still remaining, possibly ensuring that he won’t try to escape on his horse.

Sansa allows herself a little, hopeful smile. “I thought you’d be leading the men, with how much you can’t bear to be near me,” the words escape from her, leaving a bitter aftertaste.

Jon laughs for a brief moment but then his gaze turns serious. “I won’t pretend to understand how difficult it must be for you to be the sole treasurer of this dark future.” He puts a hand behind her neck then, looks at her face, eyes briefly lingering on her lips. He waits a moment. “I needed time, Sansa,” he rasps. Sansa cracks a smile at the irony of time. “All that I thought I was, _everything_ I thought about the world turned out to be nothing but horseshit. You’ve changed me, Sansa, with your words and with the very essence of you that I’ve come to discover.” She notices his fingers bury themselves inside her hair and something stops within her. “But I’ve accepted this all now… You won’t be alone in this anymore – you’ll have me now. We, Starks, don’t abandon each other.” They share a bittersweet smile. “Targaryen or Stark or Snow, you’ll _always_ have my support and love.”

Sansa tucks backwards a lone curl obscuring his face. “You said that last time too.”

Jon pauses briefly before he actually _winks_ at her, rather incompetently at that, but she never thought she’d see him lighthearted again. “Did I?” Then he draws her close and presses a kiss on her forehead. “Be safe while I’m gone, will you? Promise me that.” His whispers press dozens little kisses against her while he talks. Sansa closes her eyes, as if it’s been something she has waited for.

“I promise.”

She feels as if she’s been holding her breath ever since that first dream, and only now can she allow herself to breathe properly again.

“You keep the game I hunted down safely stored,” he orders after a moment. She nods against him. “And the firewood I chopped down.”

“Mhm.” Now she urges his face towards her with one hand. “But you shouldn’t have, you’re still healing. You brought the ointment I prepared with you?”

He smiles. “Relax, woman.” And somehow it’s the sweetest way he could ever call her.

“Oy!” Tormund yells then. “Let’s go, kneeler boy! We’ll be breathing only the dust and the farts of the others if we don’t catch up with them.”

“I’m coming!” Jon yells back and shares a sheepish smile with Sansa.

“Goodbye,” they both say in unison.

“Goodbye,” he repeats again and draws her in his arms. The moment seems infinite, although it couldn’t be more ephemeral. He lets her go, gets up on his horse in a hurry – Dawn, he’d called it – and goes to Tormund. “Sorry!” he tells him. “Let’s show them who’s the fastest.”

A chilling shiver passes into her very bones from the fear of the unknown, of what could befall those man on their way to the Castle Black and the Wall. Sansa stares at their fading figures for a long time, until there’s nothing but pale, white horizon ahead, unmarred by traces of human life.

* * *

 

Two days later two of the horsemen return.

Sansa is by the well, filling a bucket of water when she notices the other free folk seem excited and head to somewhere.

“They’ve returned,” one of the men says to his child.

“Isn’t it too soon though?” his wife asks. The Stark notices the worried glance shared between them.

“Both raiders are wounded,” another woman tells them and then stares directly at Sansa. “Weren’t you an apprentice of Yrra? You should g help her now – these lads will need all the help they can get.”

Sansa nods stiffly and hurries, the bucket of water slowing her down slightly (she can’t afford to drop it, it’d only be a waste of time to refill it when Yrra orders her to).

Two boys are just helping the second man off his horse when Sansa arrives.

“The _others_ ,” he was whispering, clutching at his open stomach. “It was them, they killed Bjork and turned her.”

Sansa approaches him frantically as the boys move him inside. “What happened to Jon, Tormund and Mance?” she asks. “Do you know what happened to them?” she urges but the man looks at her as if unseeing and when he opens his mouth to say something at last, they are already ushering him inside.

She herself enters and hurries to Yrra’s side. The healer is currently closing the eyes of the first man, who – alarmingly – is missing his legs from the knees down. “May you find peace with the gods of old,” Yrra whispers. Then, to the two boys that are helping her. “Get him to his family and burn him before sunset,” she orders. “Sansa,” she says then. “The new one, help me stitch him up.”

Sansa looks at her as if smacked. “What?”

“Get your needle and a thread and start stitching him up.”

Sansa nods and goes to get them, along with a bottle of wine. She opens the bottle and pours some of the wine on the needle, then gives the bottle another glance and helps herself generously. When she feels she has courage to do what she ought to do, she further steels her nerves and looks at the man with the gaping wound.

“Give him some milk of the poppy,” Yrra tells her as Sansa nears him. “We’re not beasts.” Sansa nods.

It’s a long day, but Sansa manages to stitch the man up well. At least while she busies herself with him, she doesn’t think about her worries.

“What do you think happened?” she asks when all her work’s done. Yrra’s making soup from leeks by the fireplace and Sansa fixates her gaze on the motions that the woman makes.

“Others ambushed them, this one’s obvious. The other riders are either dead and turned or have escaped. There is no third option.”

Sansa nods and stares at her hands, placed in a lady-like manner in front of her skirts. Yrra takes the soup from the fireplace and pours it in a wooden bowl.

“Wake up,” she tells the man after a few minutes. Her words are met by his sudden moans and whimpers, his flesh too raw from the wound and the stitching upon his awaking. “You need to drink this, Erik,” the healer urges, but her voice is soft and gentle.

Finally, Erik brings the bowl to his lips and drinks. He retches, but manages to keep it down. “For fuck’s sake, this tastes foul.”

“Why did you make him drink this?” Sansa asks her after Erik has gone back to sleep. “The man needs to rest.”

“If by nightfall I smell those leeks from his wounds, it means the stomach wound is internal and this man will die. The deal will be long and painful and it is better that I know, so I would ease his pain and kill him myself.”

Sansa regards her in a new light. “You’d kill this man after _all_ we’ve done to save him?”

The healer meets the redhead’s eyes unwaveringly. “I’ll pierce his pulse if that means I’ll save him from his misery.”

* * *

 

“He’ll live,” Yrra announces when the darkness of the night falls. Sansa, feeling strangely relieved, nods and sits by the man to monitor him during the night. She looks across the room, through the window, from which the funeral pyre of Erik’s comrade is burning up, it’s flames seemingly reaching the sky.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As Mushu says: "I LIVE!"  
> Hope you like this chapter, guys, I'm not planning to abandon this story no matter how long it takes me to finish it. University life was hectic, I have one more exam on my b-day (29th of September) and after that I'm done. I think the next chapter will be soon, but I said the same in the previous chapter and half an year long hiatus followed, so I won't promise anything. Next chapter will be Jon's POV, and rather interesting stuff will happen. As of now, please comment and tell me what you think!  
> Oh, and btw, here's the aesthetic for the chapter: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/10/cf/94/10cf946cd3262aa31946a04aa4203f3f.jpg


	7. Legends and fairy tales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the exams last September actually ate my muse and I was left uninspired and muse-less. Then I went to Ireland, then when I got back, I found myself my first real job and then I just thought about my dear fic here but couldn't write anything more about it.  
> I'm pretty mad about this since I half-forgot a really kickass Arya Stark subplot planned out for the future of this fic, she was gonna be this Valkyrie princess of rage and righteousness that protected the Stark lands and the heir to the Iron Throne and if I get back to writing this, the outline of this subplot will pop up somewhere.  
> Now here's a snippet I had written in September, I hope it's enough for you while I'm on my epic journey to find my TSYA muse.

“There’s a legend,” Mance Rayder says after an hour of silent riding, “that speaks of women throughout history that had an ability similar to your sister’s. Daenys the Dreamer, who convinced the Targaryens to flee to Westeros before the fall of olde Valyria. Nissa Nissa, the wife of the mythical Azor Ahai, who told her husband he’d been chosen by the gods to end the long night, but that he’d have to ultimately sacrifice her. But none have been as powerful as Sansa Stark.” Jon’s eyebrows rise at this. “They say that the men who take those women steal their powers,” the King-Beyond-The-Wall trails off, a wistful tone in his voice that makes Jon’s blood boil. “See how powerful both became. Azor Ahai ended the long night and pushed back the dead into the far north for thousands of years. Gaemon the Glorious’ children were the first Targaryens, the only Valyrians who were born in Westeros, his line began the dynasty of the kings.”

Jon swallows soundly. “You’re well-versed in Southron history, Mance Rayder,” is all he says.

The man smiles sardonically. “I used to be a crow, once. I grew up in your world.”

“You didn’t like it much, I take it?”

“I was needed here more,” Mance replies and pauses for such a long time, Jon thinks he won’t speak again. “I realized the army of the dead will only grow if the free folk doesn’t move south. I united them, and gave them a cause to fight together. We were willing to pass the Wall and finish off the Night’s Watch, but realized that the smarter move would be to steal away what was most precious to the Warden of the North and bargain.”

“And Sansa agrees with you now?” he realizes.

Mance gives him a smile full of teeth. “She herself told me to convince Ned Stark in any way possible of the importance of my cause.”

Jon grunts in response and decides to fall behind. Once, Mance Rayder turns back to look at him, confused that he’s disappeared, but upon seeing the frown of the young boy, he smiles widely and looks ahead once more, his back straight.

* * *

“Let me tell you a story,” Sansa begins, smoothing away the wet hair from Erik’s forehead. He had a slight fever but thankfully she managed to stop it before it got worse. Right now he is half asleep, half wishing to be asleep so she decides to ease things up for him. “Let me tell you the story of a girl who wanted too much and the man who died on his quest to fulfil her desires.”

Erik only moans in reply and leans into her cold touch.

“Perhaps the fairytale ought to have been simple – the girl was wicked and vain and the man was a fool to love her. But maybe by the end of my story you will – or _I_ will be able to understand the tragedy of their bond, to understand _her_.

“First – the man was a fierce warrior, taken inside her family since he was a babe. He was curious of her at first, when he was a child, but even if she herself also felt curious about him, she wanted to grow up to be a lady like her mother, and her mother never accepted the boy. He grew into the warrior he was meant to be, and sometimes the girl would watch him train with her brothers, her stone-faced mother by her side, and she sensed that there was a song to his fighting, a sad song in his intensity that gnawed at her heart and made her shiver. It made her wonder of the thorn at his heart, it made her wonder how could he breathe with a fire so strong inside, what made him burn in such a way that only she could see – beneath his calm and quiet somberness. And then, always: would he not collapse upon himself from the strength of it, won’t he burn himself out into ashes?

“Second – the girl was spoiled and cold, thoughtful and enduring. There really was no defining of her, except that she always _wanted_. Something had taken hold of her heart long before she finally accepted the warrior’s heart, something that made everything she saw cold and ugly, as if her heart had been cut by the sharp end of a cold mirror, as if a very small piece of it had stayed in there and caused her continued unrest. There was a subtler flair to her: you always saw in her what she wanted you to see, but inside she herself was always asking: Won’t I collapse upon myself from the strength of my rage? Won’t I burn myself out into ashes, for there are live coals inside my heart that even the coldest of winters cannot soothe.

“Third – she died. And then the rest of the world died along with her, because her warrior king was to heartbroken to protect it. And everyone but her youngest remaining brother who was not even now human, everyone died. The winter took her warrior at the very end, and when her soul – lodged inside a raven’s eye – looked upon his cold face, and his gentle eyes and saw the fire inside had finally burned out – she _howled_ from the pain of it but all that could be heard was the crow’s screech.

“When her warrior died, the girl realized that all along, all she had wanted was _him_ , and all she wanted now was to see him open his eyes again -  even if he was just the shadow of the man he used to be, even if now she was only a glitter inside a raven’s eye - even if his spark was laying somewhere so deep inside him that only a whisper of it remained, a whisper that made the hairs on your neck rise. Everyone else was like that now, save for her fallen king. So why was the world, cold in its death as it was in its life, leaving him behind?

“She clutched at his cold shadow that refused to awake, but the onlookers did not know the difference – they were unseeing and unfeeling so why would they care?”

Sansa notices that Erik has fallen asleep and she takes a deep breath but it hitches in her throat when she sees in the reflection of the window that Yrra is sitting behind her and listening to her story as well. So inside herself she has been that she has not heard her come. Still, Sansa decides to finish her story.

“So she flew away, meant to go to hell, to bargain for her beloved’s soul, but she found her little brother instead, dying in the roots of a tree. And then their eyes met and each recognized the other. Her brother smiled a chilling smile – he was so unused to mourn by now, or maybe _too_ used to it – and closed his eyes for one final time. And then – then there were none.

“The king’s lover awoke then, as a human girl again, and realized that her brother had bargained with the gods instead of her and the gods had turned back time for her. Even if her first few days were in a dream-like state – the memories of the future too muddy in her child’s brain, she remembered the howling scream her heart had made when she saw the fallen king and the memory of it was what had awoken her.

Sansa turns to look at Yrra who meets her gaze steadily, expecting to hear what the young Stark has to say to finish her story. “So you see, the girl hadn’t changed much – she was still selfish and vain. All she wanted was to see her king again, to keep seeing him until they were both old and grey. She didn’t much care for the rest of the world – the world never cared for her either. But she would push things in the right direction and save all of it if it meant that her biggest desire would be fulfilled.

“I’ve always been made of desires. You see, Yrra, I’m not a glass girl, not in the way you think me to be. I’m not gentle and delicate, I forgot how to be this. I’m not warm, I burn from the ice that has lodged inside me. I can’t be _, I am not allowed to be_ , any other glass than a dragon’s.”

Yrra looks at her silently for a long moment before she finally says, softly: “I never meant anything else, when I called you this way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is planned to actually be consisted of two parts - Tales from the North and Tales from the South, and I'll share the annotation for the second part just to give you a glimpse of what's to come and make you wonder what happened between here and then. *Evil laughter*  
> Tales from the South: Sansa Stark is a prisoner in King’s Landing after the sudden death of her father and she has terrible secrets to guard from the Queen Dowager: one, she has a secret relationship with her bastard brother, Jon Snow; two – the true heir to the Iron Throne, a little baby girl, is growing up in Castle Black, guarded by two direwolves and the whole of the Night’s Watch; three – she has memories of a future that hasn’t happened yet.  
> Things go from bad to worse with the news of Jon Snow’s death that she hasn’t been able to avoid, and the awful boredom of her dark cell with only a septa beseeching her to “confess” every few hours. Her only hope lies within her sister Arya, a ferocious northern warrior hell-bend on protecting the family.


End file.
